Rebel Hog,

At one of our deer camps we cook hog meat in the ground too. At another camp we cook it a vertical metal deal made by my son (they think they modernized it). At my home I have a concrete above ground pit that I can cook two, two hundred pound hogs on it. We use oak coals to cook with, here again, the younger ones use charcoal some times (to lazy to cut some green oak, which is the best). I don't baste mine with anything, after cooking we chop the meat and mix bar b que sauce on it, sometimes we don't even put sauce on it. Depends what they want.

Here's something I use at my house to get the oak coals. I took a 55 gallon metal drum and put metal pipe/rods thru the barrel about 12 inches from the bottom. I cut a hole on the side at the bottom of the barrel wide enough to reach in with a shovel and take out the glowing coals. We build a fire on top of the rods, they are spaced for enough apart to hold the burning wood but apart enough to allow the coals to drop thru to the bottom. Once you get it burning it's easy to keep the fire going and the coals droping. We then shovel the coals under the meat. I don't use any type thermometer, just keep the meat driping grease steadily.
dog1