{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "direct-heat",
 "type": "pit",
 "names": {
  "name": "direct heat",
  "aliases": [
   "coals under the meat",
   "open-pit",
   "pit-cooked",
   "cooking on coals"
  ]
 },
 "region": [
  "carolinas",
  "us-south"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "kind": "method"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "The Carolina way of putting fire to meat: a bed of hardwood coals directly beneath the hog or the shoulders, with no flame and no separate firebox. The coals are made elsewhere — in a burn barrel or a fireplace — and shoveled in, so the meat sits over glowing charcoal and its own dripping fat rather than in a stream of smoke. The contrast is the offset smoker of Central Texas: a cylinder with a smaller firebox attached at one end, whose burning post-oak fire sends heat and smoke sideways through the chamber past the meat — indirect heat. The whole-hog article, the Mallard Creek church and the Barbecue Center all describe the coals going under the meat.",
  "story": "The word carries the method. The Wikipedia article on barbecue draws its line between the indirect barbecues of the United States — meat roasted or smoked over wood or charcoal at low temperature for hours — and the direct grilling of most of the world, done over hot coals for minutes; in a typical American home barbecue the coals are dispersed to the sides. The Carolina pit sits across that line: the coals are directly under the meat, as on a grill, but far enough below and slow enough that the cook is barbecuing, not grilling. True 'Cue quotes a federal meat-labeling rule that defines barbecued meat as 'cooked by the direct action of dry heat resulting from the burning of hard wood'. Texas divides the same way: Central Texas cooks with indirect heat from a pecan, post-oak or mesquite fire, and West Texas over direct mesquite heat 'in a method very similar to grilling'. *Inference —* in geometry the Carolina pit is closer to the West Texas cowboy fire than to the Austin smoker, and the reason both Carolina styles burn their wood to coals first is that flame under a fat hog is a fire. Ed Mitchell in Wilson cooks 'hot and fast' with a bank of coals surrounding the hog, starting at 500 degrees and letting it fall to 250; Rodney Scott shovels coals under a hog lying belly-down for eight to twelve hours; the Barbecue Center in Lexington 'fires the pits' by distributing coals evenly beneath the shoulders.",
  "how": "Coals go in under the meat in a thin, even bed and are renewed from the burn barrel through the cook; the meat is never over flame. *Tradition holds —* the bed goes heavier under the hams and shoulders of a whole hog and thinner under the loin. Fat drips onto the coals and vaporizes — *Inference —* the source of much of what the Carolinas call wood flavor — and a flare-up from that fat is the whole-hog cook's constant danger. The pit is closed with a lid or a door to hold the heat, and a hog is flipped once near the end.",
  "today": "Every pit on the North Carolina Historic Barbecue Trail and every True 'Cue certificate cooks this way by definition — on grates over pits with wood or charcoal. *Tradition holds —* the offset smoker has arrived too: Lewis Barbecue in Charleston cooks Central Texas brisket in offset smokers, and is described here the same way as a wood pit."
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "burn-barrel",
   "as": "makes the coals that go under the meat.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "hickory-and-oak",
   "as": "the wood burned down for the bed.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "block-pit",
   "as": "the open pit built for it.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "brick-pit",
   "as": "the closed pit built for it: coals on the floor, rack above, chimney over.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "whole-hog",
   "as": "the cut cooked over a bed of coals for a night.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pork-shoulder",
   "as": "the Piedmont's cut, over the same coals in a brick pit.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pig-cooker",
   "as": "on charcoal it works the same way; on gas the burner stands in for the coals.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "gas-and-electric-cookers",
   "as": "heat from a burner or an element, smoke from a chip box: neither coals nor firebox.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "ed-mitchell",
   "as": "cooks hot and fast with a bank of coals around the hog, 500 degrees falling to 250.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "rodney-scott",
   "as": "shovels burn-barrel coals under a belly-down hog for eight to twelve hours.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "campaign-for-real-barbecue",
   "as": "quotes the federal definition — direct dry heat from burning hardwood — on its wood page.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pit",
   "as": "the word for the hole, then the box, that holds the coals under the meat.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "lewis-barbecue",
   "as": "the Charleston restaurant that, tradition holds, cooks Texas brisket the other way, in offset smokers.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  }
 ],
 "confusable_with": [
  {
   "id": "hickory-and-oak",
   "tell": "Direct heat is where the fuel sits; hickory and oak are the fuel. A Texas firebox burns the same woods beside the meat instead of beneath it."
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Barbecue — Wikipedia (direct and indirect)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue"
  },
  {
   "label": "Smoker (cooking) — Wikipedia (offset smoker)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoker_(cooking)"
  },
  {
   "label": "Barbecue in Texas — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_in_Texas"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-barbecue",
  "s:wp-smoker-cooking",
  "s:wp-barbecue-in-texas",
  "s:wp-whole-hog-barbecue",
  "s:web-mallard-creek-history",
  "s:web-leisuregrouptravel-lexington",
  "s:wp-ed-mitchell-pitmaster",
  "s:web-npr-scott-pit-burned",
  "s:web-truecue-wood",
  "s:web-ourstate-historic-barbecue-trail",
  "s:web-barbecuebible-campaign",
  "s:flickr-commons",
  "s:flickr-ncsa",
  "s:ncsa-barden"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-whole-hog-barbecue"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wp-barbecue",
    "note": "the geometry comparison is this project's inference, marked inline"
   },
   "text.how": {
    "tier": "tradition",
    "note": "the coal bed as pitmasters describe it; the fat-vapor flavor is inference, marked inline"
   },
   "text.today": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:web-ourstate-historic-barbecue-trail",
    "note": "Lewis Barbecue's method is hedged inline; not verified on this disk"
   },
   "images[0]": {
    "tier": "harvested",
    "source": "s:ncsa-barden",
    "note": "read on the photograph's own Flickr page 2026-09-16: “No known copyright restrictions”; the file, its sha256 and that statement are in the sidecar beside it"
   }
  }
 },
 "images": [
  {
   "file": "direct-heat/direct-heat-cooking-over-an-open-trench.jpg",
   "source": "flickr",
   "title": "N_53_17_314",
   "url": "https://live.staticflickr.com/2824/32810373053_6ee0b9a8b5_o.jpg",
   "page_url": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/32810373053/",
   "license": "No known copyright restrictions",
   "license_url": "https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/",
   "author": "Albert Barden; State Archives of North Carolina",
   "credit": "Albert Barden Collection, State Archives of North Carolina",
   "alt": "A man in a straw hat, white shirt and braces bends over a shallow trench dug in bare ground. Green poles are laid across the trench as a grate and meat lies on them, smoke rising through. He holds a small tin pail low in his right hand and reaches into the meat with his left. A barefoot boy in a light suit stands at one side of the clearing and a girl in a checked dress and wide hat at the other, both watching. Felled logs and woods behind.",
   "date": "",
   "primary": true,
   "sha256": "9d0211a8c225c5a023e9b1341f666f175e2b45885b49c9aa0719ed1299f7b1ed",
   "width": 1100,
   "height": 815
  }
 ],
 "x_commons_files": [],
 "confidence": "medium",
 "needs_verification": true,
 "updated": "2026-09-15",
 "blurb": "The Carolina way of putting fire to meat: a bed of hardwood coals directly beneath the hog or the shoulders, with no flame and no separate firebox.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "carolinas",
   "name": "The Carolinas",
   "state": null,
   "note": "both states together; use when a node belongs to the whole tradition"
  },
  {
   "key": "us-south",
   "name": "The American South",
   "state": null,
   "note": "for nodes shared with the wider region"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "burn-barrel",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "burn barrel",
   "as": "makes the coals that go under the meat.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "hickory-and-oak",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "hickory and oak",
   "as": "the wood burned down for the bed.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "block-pit",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "block pit",
   "as": "the open pit built for it.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "brick-pit",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "brick pit",
   "as": "the closed pit built for it: coals on the floor, rack above, chimney over.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "whole-hog",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "whole hog",
   "as": "the cut cooked over a bed of coals for a night.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pork-shoulder",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "pork shoulder",
   "as": "the Piedmont's cut, over the same coals in a brick pit.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pig-cooker",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "pig cooker",
   "as": "on charcoal it works the same way; on gas the burner stands in for the coals.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "gas-and-electric-cookers",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "gas and electric cookers",
   "as": "heat from a burner or an element, smoke from a chip box: neither coals nor firebox.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "ed-mitchell",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Ed Mitchell",
   "as": "cooks hot and fast with a bank of coals around the hog, 500 degrees falling to 250.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "rodney-scott",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Rodney Scott",
   "as": "shovels burn-barrel coals under a belly-down hog for eight to twelve hours.",
   "rel": "person"
  },
  {
   "to": "campaign-for-real-barbecue",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "Campaign for Real Barbecue",
   "as": "quotes the federal definition — direct dry heat from burning hardwood — on its wood page.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "pit",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "pit",
   "as": "the word for the hole, then the box, that holds the coals under the meat.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "lewis-barbecue",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Lewis Barbecue",
   "as": "the Charleston restaurant that, tradition holds, cooks Texas brisket the other way, in offset smokers.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-barbecue",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Barbecue — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-smoker-cooking",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Smoker (cooking) — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoker_(cooking)",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-barbecue-in-texas",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Barbecue in Texas — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_in_Texas",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-whole-hog-barbecue",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Whole hog barbecue — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_hog_barbecue",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
   "note": "revision 1369482778"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-mallard-creek-history",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "History of the Annual Barbecue",
   "publisher": "Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church",
   "url": "https://mallardcreekchurch.org/events/annual-barbecue/history/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-leisuregrouptravel-lexington",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Lexington, North Carolina Barbecue is All About the Pork (Randy Mink)",
   "publisher": "Leisure Group Travel",
   "url": "https://leisuregrouptravel.com/pork-paradise-savoring-the-flavors-of-lexington-north-carolina/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-ed-mitchell-pitmaster",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Ed Mitchell (pitmaster) — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Mitchell_(pitmaster)",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-npr-scott-pit-burned",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "When His Pit Burned Down, A Southern BBQ Master Took Hogs On Tour (Debbie Elliott, February 4, 2014)",
   "publisher": "NPR, The Salt",
   "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/04/271526910/when-his-pit-burned-down-a-southern-bbq-master-took-hogs-on-tour",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-truecue-wood",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Wood — The Campaign for Real Barbecue",
   "publisher": "The Campaign for Real Barbecue (True 'Cue)",
   "url": "http://www.truecue.org/wood",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-ourstate-historic-barbecue-trail",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Running on Full: The North Carolina Historic Barbecue Trail (Bryan Mims, January 29, 2016)",
   "publisher": "Our State",
   "url": "https://www.ourstate.com/north-carolina-historic-barbecue-trail/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:web-barbecuebible-campaign",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "The Campaign for Real Barbecue (John Shelton Reed, January 23, 2018)",
   "publisher": "BarbecueBible.com",
   "url": "https://barbecuebible.com/2018/01/23/campaign-real-barbecue/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-15"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:flickr-commons",
   "kind": "dataset",
   "title": "Flickr Commons",
   "publisher": "Flickr, with participating libraries, archives and museums",
   "url": "https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "Institutions publish photographs here under the rights statement 'No known copyright restrictions', which is not a public-domain declaration: the holding institution states it has found no copyright, shares that research without warranty, and asks the user to make an independent assessment before a new use. The statement is per photograph. The same institution's stream holds all-rights-reserved photographs alongside released ones, and the same negative sometimes appears both ways, so each file here was checked on its own page."
  },
  {
   "id": "s:flickr-ncsa",
   "kind": "dataset",
   "title": "State Archives of North Carolina on Flickr Commons",
   "publisher": "State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh",
   "url": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "Around 117,000 photographs from the State Archives' photograph collections. Uploads made from about 2015 onward generally carry 'No known copyright restrictions'; a body of 2008-era uploads of the same collections, and in places the same images, carries 'All rights reserved'. Photographs taken here were verified one page at a time; the refused ones are listed in data/harvest/picture-sources.json."
  },
  {
   "id": "s:ncsa-barden",
   "kind": "dataset",
   "title": "Albert Barden Collection, State Archives of North Carolina",
   "author": "Albert Barden",
   "publisher": "State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh",
   "url": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "note": "A Raleigh commercial photographer's negatives, roughly 1900 to the 1950s: shopfronts, filling stations, company dinners and one much-reproduced open-pit barbecue. Catalogue number N.53.17.314 appears in the stream three times — twice under 'No known copyright restrictions' and once, in an older upload, under 'All rights reserved' — and the two released scans are mirror images of each other, so the negative's orientation is not settled by this source."
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-whole-hog-barbecue"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-barbecue",
   "note": "the geometry comparison is this project's inference, marked inline"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "tradition",
   "note": "the coal bed as pitmasters describe it; the fat-vapor flavor is inference, marked inline"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:web-ourstate-historic-barbecue-trail",
   "note": "Lewis Barbecue's method is hedged inline; not verified on this disk"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": {
  "file": "direct-heat/direct-heat-cooking-over-an-open-trench.jpg",
  "source": "flickr",
  "title": "N_53_17_314",
  "url": "https://live.staticflickr.com/2824/32810373053_6ee0b9a8b5_o.jpg",
  "page_url": "https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/32810373053/",
  "license": "No known copyright restrictions",
  "license_url": "https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/",
  "author": "Albert Barden; State Archives of North Carolina",
  "credit": "Albert Barden Collection, State Archives of North Carolina",
  "alt": "A man in a straw hat, white shirt and braces bends over a shallow trench dug in bare ground. Green poles are laid across the trench as a grate and meat lies on them, smoke rising through. He holds a small tin pail low in his right hand and reaches into the meat with his left. A barefoot boy in a light suit stands at one side of the clearing and a girl in a checked dress and wide hat at the other, both watching. Felled logs and woods behind.",
  "date": "",
  "primary": true,
  "sha256": "9d0211a8c225c5a023e9b1341f666f175e2b45885b49c9aa0719ed1299f7b1ed",
  "width": 1100,
  "height": 815
 },
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "sc-pee-dee",
   "type": "style",
   "name": "Pee Dee whole-hog barbecue",
   "as": "coals shovelled under the hog, not smoke from a firebox.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "from": "block-pit",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "block pit",
   "as": "coals spread directly beneath the carcass.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "brick-pit",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "brick pit",
   "as": "coals on the floor directly beneath the rack.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "burn-barrel",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "burn barrel",
   "as": "its coals go straight under the meat.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "hickory-and-oak",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "hickory and oak",
   "as": "the way the coals are used: spread under the meat.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "pig-cooker",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "pig cooker",
   "as": "on charcoal it works the Carolina way, coals under the meat; on gas the burner stands in for the coals.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "whole-hog",
   "type": "pit",
   "name": "whole hog",
   "as": "the heat under it: coals directly beneath the carcass, not smoke drawn from a firebox.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "ed-mitchell",
   "type": "person",
   "name": "Ed Mitchell",
   "as": "his method: a bank of coals around the hog, 500 degrees falling to 250, vents closed overnight.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "from": "campaign-for-real-barbecue",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "Campaign for Real Barbecue",
   "as": "the federal definition it quotes: direct dry heat from burning hardwood.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "from": "pit",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "pit",
   "as": "the pit's way of cooking: coals under the meat, the meat on a rack above.",
   "rel": "part"
  }
 ]
}