flyingbassman5
is one Smokin' Farker
Last weekend I cooked pulled pork, burgers, and hot dogs for around 60-70 people for my lady friend's, sister's, 16th surprise birthday party. Biggest cook I've done thus far. Done a few 20-25 person "get togethers" but that is it.
I enjoyed doing all the cooking and had a lot of fun, but fark, talk about a learning experience. My biggest lesson learned?? Sam's Club closes at 8pm, so if you work until 7:30pm on Friday's like I do, don't expect to make it there on time to get a pack of butts for the cook the next day. I ended up going to 4 different stores (including the closed up Sam's :doh
to find butts for the cook. I figured I needed at least 10lbs of raw butt to have enough cooked meat to allow everyone to have there fill. I didn't need a ton since I was already planning to cook 20 burgers and 20 hot dogs.
So finally I stumbled into a local grocery and found two 5.5lb butts. I look at the price and fark, $2.20/lb. Gotta be kiddin' me. I had no choice, the next option was Wally World..uke:
Grabbed em, and ran to the front of the store as if I had just stolen the last two in the store out of some old lady's cart (probably would've resorted to that). Paid the nice lady at the express counter and went on my merry way with bag in tow. Drive myself home and pull out a butt from the bag......wait, I bought two :evil:. Where the hell did the second one go??? Turns out, it got left up at the store since the once nice lady at the counter, who at this point is irrationally being called explicit names during my drive back up to the store, put each butt in its own bag. Why? Who the fark knows, company policy maybe? Anyway, I head back home with the second butt and not a second before 10pm finally get both unwrapped and pray that nothing smells "funny". Thank God they didn't. Prepped and rubbed them both up with two different rubs and put them in the fridge over night. One with Blues Hog and one with some Famous Dave's I'm trying to get rid of.
From then on out, everything else went to plan, except for the blasted rain that decided to sneak in during the morning as I was getting the Pit Barrel up and running. Nothing a pop up wouldn't fix..
I snapped a few pics but nothing too fancy and didnt get too much pron of the food. A combination of too busy and too lazy is to blame..
Both butts ready for the cooker the next morning.
My improvised cooking area.
PBC after the meat went on.
She dropped down to 225ish when both cold butts went in. Eventually got back up to temp and actually jumped to 325 so I tweaked the vent and got her back down to 300. I'm really liking the Maverick pit therm..
I had 4 different sauces folks could choose from for all the Q.
....and that is where I stopped. Didn't get any cooking pics of the burgers or dogs (like any one cares about those) and didn't get any plated/serving pics. Oh well...next time then. Still learned a lot from it and it was a good overall cook. I received many compliments about the food.:grin:
Already have another big cook coming up the first weekend of June for the church youth group. Pulled pork sammies for 100+ hungry teens and parents. Its a little more "formal" of a job but I'm ready to bite the bullet and take what I learned from the party and hit this one out of the park!
I enjoyed doing all the cooking and had a lot of fun, but fark, talk about a learning experience. My biggest lesson learned?? Sam's Club closes at 8pm, so if you work until 7:30pm on Friday's like I do, don't expect to make it there on time to get a pack of butts for the cook the next day. I ended up going to 4 different stores (including the closed up Sam's :doh
to find butts for the cook. I figured I needed at least 10lbs of raw butt to have enough cooked meat to allow everyone to have there fill. I didn't need a ton since I was already planning to cook 20 burgers and 20 hot dogs.So finally I stumbled into a local grocery and found two 5.5lb butts. I look at the price and fark, $2.20/lb. Gotta be kiddin' me. I had no choice, the next option was Wally World..
uke:Grabbed em, and ran to the front of the store as if I had just stolen the last two in the store out of some old lady's cart (probably would've resorted to that). Paid the nice lady at the express counter and went on my merry way with bag in tow. Drive myself home and pull out a butt from the bag......wait, I bought two :evil:. Where the hell did the second one go??? Turns out, it got left up at the store since the once nice lady at the counter, who at this point is irrationally being called explicit names during my drive back up to the store, put each butt in its own bag. Why? Who the fark knows, company policy maybe? Anyway, I head back home with the second butt and not a second before 10pm finally get both unwrapped and pray that nothing smells "funny". Thank God they didn't. Prepped and rubbed them both up with two different rubs and put them in the fridge over night. One with Blues Hog and one with some Famous Dave's I'm trying to get rid of.
From then on out, everything else went to plan, except for the blasted rain that decided to sneak in during the morning as I was getting the Pit Barrel up and running. Nothing a pop up wouldn't fix..
I snapped a few pics but nothing too fancy and didnt get too much pron of the food. A combination of too busy and too lazy is to blame..
Both butts ready for the cooker the next morning.
My improvised cooking area.
PBC after the meat went on.
She dropped down to 225ish when both cold butts went in. Eventually got back up to temp and actually jumped to 325 so I tweaked the vent and got her back down to 300. I'm really liking the Maverick pit therm..
I had 4 different sauces folks could choose from for all the Q.
....and that is where I stopped. Didn't get any cooking pics of the burgers or dogs (like any one cares about those) and didn't get any plated/serving pics. Oh well...next time then. Still learned a lot from it and it was a good overall cook. I received many compliments about the food.
:grin:Already have another big cook coming up the first weekend of June for the church youth group. Pulled pork sammies for 100+ hungry teens and parents. Its a little more "formal" of a job but I'm ready to bite the bullet and take what I learned from the party and hit this one out of the park!
