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Smoker Preferences for Catering

Use both a Spicewine Large, and a 7 foot stick burner. Both have merits for different reasons.

Stick burner is messy, a bit time consuming (I can get a consistent 225* burn for 5.5 hours), but good for a "prop" or putting on a show when I have some help. It is EZ to get in and out, and regularly makes visits to the Tommy Trojan statue area for SC home game tailgates. It is our "tailgater" of choice, but the trailer is such that it allows for little to no hauling/storage. It is a big attention getter.

The Spicewine sits on an 18 ft trailer with 2 ramps we can fold down for a big "footprint". Trailer carries our 3 comp sink, coolers, tables, 2 burner stove, Santa Maria rig, EZ ups, and generators with out missing a beat. We can turn out lots of quality product, but the trailer needs a lot more room and planning. Lots of black, red and chrome attracts attention, but it's the smoke in the end that everyone notices, and not as many questions asked.

Ultimate goal is either a double Spice or large rotisserie smoker trailer in the 20-25 foot range with a Kitchen and vending window(s) - But no time soon, for sure.
 
This is a very good thread and is giving me a lot of valuable opinions.

I am looking at getting into the catering business here in Canada as the high tech industry where I work and work in had pretty much died and leaving town (thank you Nortel).

I am thinking very seriously about a Spicewine as it has a good added feature of the double wall construction that will increase my season as the temperature starts to drop. Also I think they will be more economical in the colder seasons. Also the spice is nice from a visual aspect as it will draw looks. I would like to buy Spices model that he has up for sale but I need to have a grill option as true BBQ is still in its infancy up here and I think a good model is to take the grill jobs but have the smoker there to slowly transfer the customers over to the good stuff

As a secondary choice I have looked at the American Barbecue Systems Judge model. I like this as it is rotisserie as well can be converted to hold flat racks. The ABS also has a grilling feature which is nice.

Does anyone have any experience or opinions on the ABS.
 
I still say stickburners rule! I/or one of my cooks have to add a log every 45 minutes not a lot of hassle at all. If you are turning out volume you should not be doing it "Han Solo" anyway. YMMV:biggrin:
 
Guys can you please snd some pic's of the stickburners. I am hooked on my Fatboy & Eggs, but always looking to get a new addition to the family!
 
I know that we are all passionate about our cookers but sometimes that clouds our ability to make sound judgement when purchasing a cooker for efficient catering.

Would I buy a Lang to do catering? No, if you notice that all of those Lang fire boxes are rusted you realize that the fire needs to be blazing, that is how they get rusted. Would I use a Lang to compete? I wouldn't but many folks do. I just hate the thought of feeding a whole tree into a smoker for one brisket, a couple racks of ribs and a but. I am not trying to badmouth the Lang, I just hate to see folks make the mistake of buying one to cater only to realize that they have made a mistake later because they were trying to be cheap.

I use a Stumps now, would I buy a Stumps to cater? NO, the capacity is limited plus you have to rotate the racks when you do fill it up which equals work. I have been doing this for the last year and a half and it can be a job. With small amounts of meat where you just utilize the top three racks this thing is wonderful. Would I use a Stumps to compete, hell yeah! for smaller amounts of meat I wouldn't own anything else, I know of no other cooker that can cook two days of the Royal on one bag of charcoal and maintain temperatures of 225 degrees plus or minus a half degree.

Earlier in this post, someone stated that you could do 15 pork butts in the stumps, well you better have plenty of layers of foil in there and swap them often, because there will be a boat load of grease flowing and you will need to get it out of that smoker of you risk the chance of a flare-up. Will this happen everytime, maybe not, but it will happen 99.99% of the time. I think the bigger problem than the flare-up will be the airflow though. I have done this many times and know from experience. Again, Stumps equal great comp cooking but are limited on capacity.

Where I wouldn't use the Lang, I would definitely use an offset that had an insulated fire box. I know folks who can get extended cooks with very little wood, we see them at every comp. I didn't mean to offend anybody that owns a Lang, but we all know that those folks always upgrade.

I am still leaning towards the rotisserie and will probably pick one up next month when my catering picks up. I have been dodging jobs due to the summer heat. I talked to the ABS folks and they stated that I can do an all night cook on about 5 bags of charcoal with a few sticks of wood mixed in. Does that sound about right?
 
Tony, I might disagree with you on a few points. I own a Lang for catering and my firebox is not rusty and I do not have a blazing fire going in it either to keep it going. It is all in fire managment and upkeep. If you treat your Lang like a cast iron skillet it will be beautiful for years to come (I have an older model, so I cant speak on the newer model). While we will be using the 84 for comps this year, I agree, that is a bit of overkill for a comp. I myself prefer a Backwoods for Comps, but that is my preference.

As for catering, I guess it is all up to the pitmaster and what they are comfortable with. We have to add a log about every 1-1.5 hours or so, that is not too much for me....
 
tony76248 said:
I talked to the ABS folks and they stated that I can do an all night cook on about 5 bags of charcoal with a few sticks of wood mixed in. Does that sound about right?
Click to expand...

I am looking at an ABS myself when I start up and 5 bags seems to be a bit on a overnight cook. Currently I am a pellet head and have limited experience with charcoal cookers so I may be way off but read a post of a guy using 40 pounds of coal in a Spicewine and it lasted 50 hours at 225.
 
txschutte said:
I have been cooking on the large reverse flow for a while. Even some on the drum for catering/vending.

What would you do in my situation?
Click to expand...

In all fairness I never owned a cabinet smoker or an offset but I am very happy with 250 Meat Beast I built. It works much like the UDS as you don't need to tend to it very often. I can ramp up the heat and use it as a grill plus it has a hot holding chamber that also triples as firebox or more of an offset if you will.

Money is a huge factor for us at the moment and this build has been the best thing I could have created to do catering. Now to get some seriously deep smoke you would have to use more smoke wood but again over here on the island smoke/BBQ is relatively new so it takes less to get the job done.


Put on a show/ grab attenion? Yup
Stevenson's rocket anyone?
157126778_b37eba585a.jpg


358e0rd.jpg




We have had three people working out of it at one time on ocassions with great sucess...

ivzjgk.jpg
 
BubbaBones said:
I am looking at an ABS myself when I start up and 5 bags seems to be a bit on a overnight cook. Currently I am a pellet head and have limited experience with charcoal cookers so I may be way off but read a post of a guy using 40 pounds of coal in a Spicewine and it lasted 50 hours at 225.
Click to expand...

You have to remember that the Spicewine is insulated and the ABS isn't. Like anything you need to see it for yourself to believe it on the 50 hour cook. I cook with a guy that has a spicewice and I will ask him all bs aside what he can expect as far as cooktimes go.
 
Spydermike72 said:
Tony, I might disagree with you on a few points. I own a Lang for catering and my firebox is not rusty and I do not have a blazing fire going in it either to keep it going. It is all in fire managment and upkeep. If you treat your Lang like a cast iron skillet it will be beautiful for years to come (I have an older model, so I cant speak on the newer model). While we will be using the 84 for comps this year, I agree, that is a bit of overkill for a comp. I myself prefer a Backwoods for Comps, but that is my preference.

As for catering, I guess it is all up to the pitmaster and what they are comfortable with. We have to add a log about every 1-1.5 hours or so, that is not too much for me....
Click to expand...

As I said, we are all passionate about our smokers, I was just sharing what I know, the Lang is a bargain reverse flow offset smoker. I can think of better but definitely not cheaper offset smokers that I would prefer to use in the catering business. How much wood do you use for one competition?

I never said they wouldn't work in the catering business. But ask yourself, what offset smoker would you rather have if cost was not an option (staying under $8k-$10k) and the Lang probably would not be at the top of your list, possibly not even on the first page. Tell you what, give me your top 10 offset smoker list.

The pitmaster is definitely part of the equation, I just know that if I don't have to dicker with the pit I can put my full concentration into the customer service. That is the part of the job that brings in the additional jobs.
 
Spydermike72 said:
Tony, I might disagree with you on a few points. I own a Lang for catering and my firebox is not rusty and I do not have a blazing fire going in it either to keep it going. It is all in fire managment and upkeep. If you treat your Lang like a cast iron skillet it will be beautiful for years to come (I have an older model, so I cant speak on the newer model). While we will be using the 84 for comps this year, I agree, that is a bit of overkill for a comp. I myself prefer a Backwoods for Comps, but that is my preference.

As for catering, I guess it is all up to the pitmaster and what they are comfortable with. We have to add a log about every 1-1.5 hours or so, that is not too much for me....
Click to expand...

I support this statement!

People "upgrade" when they start doing jobs of 300+ on a consistent basis. Moreover, BBQ catering does not mean overnight cooks day in and day out! Fire management in a stickburner is critical and as I said earlier. If you are consistently catering to the masses, you are paying someone to add a log to the fire anyway. This is my fourth season of catering with my fabricated stickburner. My only regret is that I did not shell out the extra
bucks for a Klose. 50% of catering is grilling more or less YMMV! For exapmle, this is a sweet "stick burning" catering rig.
Bling_Bling_1.jpg
 
50% of catering is grilling more or less
Click to expand...

I agree and that's why I love my rig. Last weekend we brought along a small gasser to quickly do burgers and warm tortillas so now I'm thinking of adding one to the tongue of the Meat Beast.
 
This is a great thread! Thanks for all of the advice and opinions.

Tom the Grill Guy
 
Depending on the job/event, we carry a Santa Maria grill, and sometimes our big gasser grill. We use the Spicewine because it is so flexible for what we do - BBQ, oven, hot box - And have a system that works. That's really what it's about, a system that works for your situation, with some flexibility to handle the jobs you want to take.
 
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