How many lbs of pulled pork

There's another thread on Q-Talk right now asking basically the same thing. I think the consensus is about 1/2 lb per person is a good estimate.

See here: http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88540

I squeezed 5 butts on an 18" WSM this summer. 3 smaller ones on one rack and 2 on another. I'd think that 4 -- 8-10 lb'ers should be plenty. Remember, post cooked weight is always gonna be less that pre-cooked.



Good luck!

three pork butts should do the trick but since they fairly cheap do four and freeze the left overs . Here a web site that might come in handy for calculating serving ,Allrecipes.com

smokehunter said:

Thanks guys. Appreciate it.... What about the fuel. Think that will change. I can easily do an overnight cook with one butt on there. Think that will change with 4. Thanks.

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Nope. Not much, I don't think.
I look at it like this.....fuel is a variable of cooker temp, not amount of meat. Although it may take a little longer for the cooker to return to temp once placing meat on (although I doubt it) a cooker at 225 for 12 hours will use roughly the same amount of fuel no matter if it's packed full of meat or empty.

I had my 5 butts on and other than having to let the 2 bigger ones cook for another 1/2 hour, they were all done at about the same time as it usually takes me to cook just one, and I never had to add any fuel at all. Fill that sucker up and use the minion method.

4 9lb butts will yield close 18-20 lbs of cooked meat.

smokehunter said:

Thanks guys. Appreciate it.... What about the fuel. Think that will change. I can easily do an overnight cook with one butt on there. Think that will change with 4. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I'm sure it will change some but not by a whole lot. Something about thermo mass or something. 1/2 pound per person should be more than enough.
Just load up your charcoal ring with a bag of your favorite coals and you will be fine. Monitor your temps for the first couple hours and you should be ok.

I smoked 20 lbs of butt for 35 people and we had a ton of sides...it was just enough. I mean there were NO LEFTOVERS! I'd go with a minimum of 3 but would do 4 if you want leftovers.:decision:

My super easy math...but with explanation.

Some say higher but yield after rendering and removing most of the fat is pretty much 50 percent. Assuming normal number of sides I calculate by 1/4 pound portions, 2 portions avg per person to determine amount of protein needed. This is helpful because if PP is your main protein then you calculate 2 portions per person, if there are others (in your case kabobs) then calculate 1 portion PP per person.

The easy math is this, if pork butt in any form is your primary protein then the number of guests is the number of #'s of raw meat you will need. 50 guests equals 50 #'s raw which equals 25 #'s finished product or 100 portions. If serving other proteins then divide the number of guests by 2 to get amount of raw needed.