[Greg60525]

I'll be smoking pork butts and briskets for ~ 80 people. All of this will be at my home. I will hold in a preheated cooler. Here's how I will be set-up and what process that I will use. Please correct me or offer better methods.

- pork and briskets will be placed into chaffing sets using two half pans for each meat and warming with sterno. The half pans will allow me to rotate in fresh meat.

- I plan to initially cut-up what I think will be enough for the first run-though the buffet line (self serve). I will pull more meat from the holding cooler, as needed. I will also have a Polder probe in the meat that is being held to make sure it is above 140°F.

- I will write down the time that the food is placed on the table and monitor how long it sits out. If it's at 2 hours and people are still eating I will rotate new meat from the cooler into the trays and take the older meat and place into a cooler with ice to drop the temp to 70°F for 2 hours and then refrigerate to get temp to at least 40°F within another hour. Same thing will happen to the meat in the cooler that hits 140°F.

- If people get hungry later I can reheat the meat to at least 165°F ....... this party may last awhile!

- I will also have coleslaw that I will surround the pan in ice and make sure that I periodically stir to keep cooled.

Some questions:

- how hot will the sterno keep the meat?
- will the sterno dry out the meat, especially the brisket?

Am I doing it right? Any advice, comments, better way of doing things, etc.?

Thanks,