My kids' elementary school has a Halloween Carnival every year. The food is normally the standard dogs, burgers and pizza - nothing wrong with that, but I figured it'd be nice to kick things up a notch and bring in some $$ for the PTA in the process.
I joined KCBS and was able to get 100# of butts and a box of 80 meatballs, among other things from Restaurant Depot for a very good price. I invested in a Cambro and a couple chafing dishes as well - I've been wanting these for a while & now I had a good reason for to get them (it's not for me, honey, it's for the kids!)
I did a little lurking around the catering forum as well as in Q-talk (in other words, I actually left WP and brushed up on some cooking tips :shocked
I was gonna cook everything the night before and pull at the event, but after approximately 2.5 seconds of thought I realized it was insane to try that for the first time out. So I cooked ahead of time.
Here's 12 butts totaling 100#. Most rubbed with Chris Lily's recipe, some with SM cherry. All injected with Chris Lily's recipe minus half the salt.
I put 'em in my beloved Klose, burning hickory.
ran so the therm read 250, which gives me up to 300, even 325 or so towards the firebox, so I rotated.
The cook went into the night.
I was running higher temps and the bark was getting a little barky so I foiled. Consequently, the bark wasn't how I liked it so I stuck 'em back in for a while to set it up a little and make it not so mushy.
No pix after here - too much dang work going on!
I vacu-sealed all the meat in mostly 3# bags. I made 10 1# bags in case anybody wanted to take a # home from the event. It was somewhere around 46#. I did all this on Sunday for the event on Sat. I rotated the meat through the freezer, one of the main reasons being my fridge space was limited. I kept the 1 pounders frozen so they would help keep things cool in the cooler on the day of the event.
I also made 4x recipe of Kevin's smoked beans and 5x Guerry's vinegar slaw. I need to do 10x slaw recipe next time. :doh:
I wanted some goodness wafting through the air at the event, so I cooked MOINKs on site on an Old Smokey and MUDS. Used SM Sweet & Spicy and Blues Hog cut w/jalapeno jelly and just a little Jolakia powder.
I brought along a 2 eye propane burner and had water boiling and boiled in the bag. This kept the meat nice & moist and if things slowed down, I could slow down and not reheat too much. This turned out not to be an issue. I kept the meat warm in a chafing dish.
I had great help from family & friends. I lost count of the sammiches sold, but it was around 170. Based on what I've read here, it sounds like almost too many sammiches for the amt. of meat I had, but we were pilin' 'em good - I wanted folks to be happy with what they got - and I think they were. The slaw came with the sammich and the beans were extra. I sold out of everything - not a morsel left :clap2:. Nobody had ever heard of MOINKs before and they all went farking nuts over them. I made 80 and need to do double that next year. The whole thing went off like gangbusters and we got a lot of very positive feedback. All of this food moved in a period of 3.5 or 4 hours. Even though it was a lot of work, we had a huge time and raised an arseload of dough for the PTA. I was way pumped at the end of the day and I will be doing this again, I can assure you of that.
The vast majority of techniques, methods, etc. I used to pull this off were things I learned here. I have a little catering/restaurant experience but this place was invaluable in helping the event go off as successfully as it did - you guys farking rock! :clap2:
Chambers (where you been btw?) - I'm gonna single you out here - once in a while I see threads of yours involving charity cooks and that is largely what inspired me to give this a try. I know a lot of you guys do this on a regular basis, but Dan is the first one I noticed doing this when I got here.
Seriously, you farkers are too cool. This is why when I re-up my subscription in a week or so I'll be moving on to the tequila.
I joined KCBS and was able to get 100# of butts and a box of 80 meatballs, among other things from Restaurant Depot for a very good price. I invested in a Cambro and a couple chafing dishes as well - I've been wanting these for a while & now I had a good reason for to get them (it's not for me, honey, it's for the kids!)
I did a little lurking around the catering forum as well as in Q-talk (in other words, I actually left WP and brushed up on some cooking tips :shocked
I was gonna cook everything the night before and pull at the event, but after approximately 2.5 seconds of thought I realized it was insane to try that for the first time out. So I cooked ahead of time.
Here's 12 butts totaling 100#. Most rubbed with Chris Lily's recipe, some with SM cherry. All injected with Chris Lily's recipe minus half the salt.
I put 'em in my beloved Klose, burning hickory.
ran so the therm read 250, which gives me up to 300, even 325 or so towards the firebox, so I rotated.
The cook went into the night.
I was running higher temps and the bark was getting a little barky so I foiled. Consequently, the bark wasn't how I liked it so I stuck 'em back in for a while to set it up a little and make it not so mushy.
No pix after here - too much dang work going on!
I vacu-sealed all the meat in mostly 3# bags. I made 10 1# bags in case anybody wanted to take a # home from the event. It was somewhere around 46#. I did all this on Sunday for the event on Sat. I rotated the meat through the freezer, one of the main reasons being my fridge space was limited. I kept the 1 pounders frozen so they would help keep things cool in the cooler on the day of the event.
I also made 4x recipe of Kevin's smoked beans and 5x Guerry's vinegar slaw. I need to do 10x slaw recipe next time. :doh:
I wanted some goodness wafting through the air at the event, so I cooked MOINKs on site on an Old Smokey and MUDS. Used SM Sweet & Spicy and Blues Hog cut w/jalapeno jelly and just a little Jolakia powder.
I brought along a 2 eye propane burner and had water boiling and boiled in the bag. This kept the meat nice & moist and if things slowed down, I could slow down and not reheat too much. This turned out not to be an issue. I kept the meat warm in a chafing dish.
I had great help from family & friends. I lost count of the sammiches sold, but it was around 170. Based on what I've read here, it sounds like almost too many sammiches for the amt. of meat I had, but we were pilin' 'em good - I wanted folks to be happy with what they got - and I think they were. The slaw came with the sammich and the beans were extra. I sold out of everything - not a morsel left :clap2:. Nobody had ever heard of MOINKs before and they all went farking nuts over them. I made 80 and need to do double that next year. The whole thing went off like gangbusters and we got a lot of very positive feedback. All of this food moved in a period of 3.5 or 4 hours. Even though it was a lot of work, we had a huge time and raised an arseload of dough for the PTA. I was way pumped at the end of the day and I will be doing this again, I can assure you of that.
The vast majority of techniques, methods, etc. I used to pull this off were things I learned here. I have a little catering/restaurant experience but this place was invaluable in helping the event go off as successfully as it did - you guys farking rock! :clap2:
Chambers (where you been btw?
) - I'm gonna single you out here - once in a while I see threads of yours involving charity cooks and that is largely what inspired me to give this a try. I know a lot of you guys do this on a regular basis, but Dan is the first one I noticed doing this when I got here. Seriously, you farkers are too cool. This is why when I re-up my subscription in a week or so I'll be moving on to the tequila.
