Pit cooking

I'm pit cooking a goat for my youngest's wedding. I was wondering about other people's experiences with pit cooking, any advice, etc.

If nothing else, I will document my experience. The pit has been dug, and we are lining it this weekend with brick and concrete blocks. Pictures will follow.

Greetings from the Mixtec Region of Oaxaca, AKA pit-cooked goat central!

Do you have any really dense rocks? Like chunks of marble, do you have any fired clay bricks? I kind of feel like concrete blocks are going to release their heat to fast to really slow cook that goat well.  You can put the concrete blocks, then any all over inside layer of fired clay bricks. We just line the bottom, under the fire, with really dense rock. Rock that can hold a ton of heat without splitting.
burn the fire a long time, THEN we line the pit with maguey leaves--I'm guessing you don't have those in Oregon, but there is a really good chance you've got some Oaxaqueños in Oregon, you could befriend them and have them over to help.  There's a cracked corn stew made with the blood that goes in a big pot and then the pieces of goat are arranged on top.
Here's a video

Our ground is 1/3 rock. The pit was dug, lined on the bottom with bricks, sides lined with concrete blocks. The hole was quite a bit larger than what we ended up needing, so we back filled the sides with the dug up rock, and then filled with decomposed granite. It should hold in the heat quite well. We will soak the area with water the day before starting the fire. I'm following the method suggested by a local. Wrapping the primal cuts in foil, then wet newspaper, then more foil. It will cook overnight for 12-14 hours.

Half of it will be just shredded for tacos, the other half will be for birria, a stew. My future in-laws are from Jalisco where the dish hails from.

We cooked in something like that. An entire pig. Was tender and delicious. Ours was above ground though. Same cement block and size. I'm interested in knowing how you plan to get and keep the fire up while you do the cooking. We personally had a grate over the top where we put the pig and then my husband used metal roofing to make a lid. Really simple and cheap.

We did have to add charcoal fairly often to keep the temp up. Ours not being buried.

We didn't cover the pig at all. We didn't really season it either. It was delicious.

No experience with cooking meat like this, but I recently cooked jacket potatoes for 40 scouts in a hole in the ground. I was so pleased with results. They were melt-in-the-mouth sweet, not burned. Really lovely. This is going to be my go-to system for a hot lunch on days working in the woods. Get the fire going in the ground in the morning, throw the spuds in and cover with soil. Then uncover at lunch time.  No need to sit and tend a fire, or worry about things burning. No need to leave a job part way through because lunch is ready NOW.

I cooked the meat overnight on Thursday. It took a lot longer to get a bed of coals than I had been told. The instructions said two hours, it took 4 1/2 hours. I cooked the meat for 14 hours. It turned out amazing. I tossed it with a board sauce that I use for taco meats to keep it moist and flavorful when reheating. It was a huge success, no leftovers.