one more question,how much meat?

[bluzieq]

okay now how much meat can you really get by with? mbn site says you have to cook whole shoulders , not butts. It is not a money issue but size of smoker issue. this bar be cube would have two racks removed leaving 3 roughly 22x22in racks.to get shoulders,ribs on. I could take an 18in wsm and my 22in kettle if I had too,but don't really want to, thanks for all the advice.

[Lake Dogs]

MBN: You'll want 1 whole shoulder (yes, the combination of a picnic and a butt) for each of the on-site judges, and of course at least 1 for your blind turn-in. That's 4, IF you dont get lucky enough to make finals. Finals you'll have 4 judges come see you at one time; I like to have 2 for that. That's 6 if cooked perfectly. I cook 8 or 9 (they come 3 to a case around here). That gives me 2 to choose from for my blind, and only 1 left-over as the not-perfect one....

Yes, cooking 8 or 9 20#+- whole shoulders is pretty much like cooking 16-18 butts...

Same for ribs. You'll want at least 2 racks for blind, a rack each for on-site. At least 2 more for finals; some do full 4 racks for finals.. 9 is usually minimum. I usually cook 12 racks.

For the reasons above, I've not done a hog in MBN; yet.

[Alexa RnQ]

:shock:

I'm never going to complain about bagging up our leftovers again.

[Lake Dogs]

LOL. Even with no hog, whether we make finals or not, I've always bagged up plenty of pulled pork for each on-site judge (coming by afterwards) and when we dont make finals I've tried to give a friend or two the on-site finals experience. Last time we got to give a few guys from China the "treatment". Was the first BBQ in America they'd had... They were here as buyers; I'm told they really enjoyed the "treatment" and apparently bought a few $$$ extra (a few million); they were purchasing Caterpillar equipment...

MBN, look online for pics of the on-site. Greet the judge, take him to the smoker, give him/her a 3 to 4 minute spiel; show you meat ON the smoker (dressed up; refer to pics), then take them to the table, pull the meat apart there and give it to them to eat. Pull they MM right there in front of them... Give them 10 minutes ON your Q. And, be clean, clean, clean, and CLEAN. You'll see some very dressy pictures. You dont have to dine them on fine china. However, whatever you do, make it CLEAN. In the 2 minutes between judges we've bussed the table, cleaned it, fresh dishes and silverware, fresh water, the whole 9 yards. It takes more than 2 people to do it right, but you can do it with just 2. We try to have 4 of us... We're rare in that we use 2 presenters; I do the initial greet and introduce the team, and then I present the smoker and the meat and talk about how we cook. I carry the meat to the table to the other presenter who talks about how awesome the meat is (he's our sales guy)... :-) It's a helluva lot of work, but a helluva lot of fun too.

[bruno994]

okay now how much meat can you really get by with? mbn site says you have to cook whole shoulders , not butts. It is not a money issue but size of smoker issue. this bar be cube would have two racks removed leaving 3 roughly 22x22in racks.to get shoulders,ribs on. I could take an 18in wsm and my 22in kettle if I had too,but don't really want to, thanks for all the advice.

Seems like you may need to be purchasing a larger smoker soon.

[bluzieq]

Seems like you may need to be purchasing a larger smoker soon.
I've got to prep my wife!! I knew that was coming as soon as I bought this one. Been looking at lang 60, or the peoria cookers.:decision: