Charity Event for 300+

[A-dub]

Hey everyone-

This weekend I am involved in a Charity event where I will be cooking (along with another guy and his smoker) BBQ for about 300 people.

My question, since I have never cooked this much meat before relates to the internal temp I should shoot for.

I normally would pull it off around 190 degrees. However, since there will be so much meat, and it will be wrapped in foil and placed in coolers for several hours before serving (we will take what we need from the cooler and pull to serve), should I consider pulling it off the cooker a little earlier?

I want to avoid over cooking the meat and allowing it to get mushy or even dried out.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Terry Knife]

Are you not cooking where you are serving? Just wondering why you're planning on coolering for so long.

[PorkQPine]

What are you cooking? Pork won't be a problem to cook to correct temp. and hold.

[chambersuac]

What are you cooking? We have done pork several times for similar sized crowds...mostly butts, but once we did hogs.

Each time, we cooked just as we would always cook it - then packed into large coolers and kept until we needed to pull them. We have never had a problem with them drying out - maybe the cooler and thermal mass of the meat keeps them moist??? I've never had complaints of them being mushy, either.

You may be amazed at how hot the meat will stay in those coolers - hours later will still be too hot to handle without gloves.

Of course, beef might be different...

[Terry Knife]

No difference with Beef, I was amazed when I first started using a cooler for holding in this manner - and now even more so when holding in a cambro unit. If you warm up the cooler with boiling water before hand you'll have even better holding in either.

[A-dub]

We are cooking pork butts.

Thanks for the info guys. I think everything should work out fine.