300 burgers

[Jeff Hughes]

I have a lunch gig in a couple of weeks that calls for 300 burgers. I can smoke them or grill them. I can hold in my smoker, cambro, or pans.

Service will be buffet with potato salad and slaw.

My current plan is to grill them, then hold in the smoker...

I would love your suggestions...

[BigBobBQ]

I think you have a great idea, grill them and you can keep them warm in the smoker. Depending on the type of smoker as to how low you can hold the temps you might take them off just short of cooked, they should carry over and finish off nicely in the smoker and be ready to go.

[ThomEmery]

hold em in a pan with beef broth
tastes dang good

[WineMaster]

Grill them and make a bath in a roaster with onions, peppers and beer.

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ht=burger+bath

[Bbq Bubba]

I agree with most, cook them and cambro. Leave the smoker home.

[Jacked UP BBQ]

What size grill are you cooking on? If you cook 30 at a time by the time you get to the last batch you are talking an hour later. The first batch might be dried out holding. I would use a very fatty burger if you are going to hold

[fil]

Cook the first couple of batches until almost done, put in large disposable aluminum pans and add beef broth and a little worcestershire sauce. When you are getting closer to being finished cook the burgers a bit more and hold in the smoker til serving time.

fil

[TailGateJoecom]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hughes

I have a lunch gig in a couple of weeks that calls for 300 burgers. I can smoke them or grill them. I can hold in my smoker, cambro, or pans.

Service will be buffet with potato salad and slaw.

My current plan is to grill them, then hold in the smoker...

I would love your suggestions...

Have you figured out the actual burgers you will be using? I do tailgate parties for 200-300 where i do the burgers on site, so i have a little experience with this. The actual burgers used can help a lot. Fresh is way better then frozen, they cook a lot faster and you don't have to destroy them with overcooking to get them to temp. If you need to go with frozen, buy the better ones. When I use frozen, i buy at Restaurant Depot, where they have different quality levels. I use the Farmland Gold Medal angus burgers, which come in different sizes. The great thing about these is they are made with whole muscle meat, and are individually flash frozen, so they are not stuck together. They are super quick to get on the grill, just like a stack of big beef poker chips that you just toss on the grill. They also have holes to help with cooking. Season them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder (which is key) and nobody will think they are frozen.

With my party, it is a 4-5 hour affair and people gradually show up, so i don't need all at once so i can just keep churning them out. When I do need a big pile at once i pull them off the grill, toss them into a pan, cover, and stack pans on a far side of my grill with the burner underneath it off. I use a crown verity mcb72 6ft long grill with 2 3ft roll domes, so i have plenty of space to do all that, so ymmv.

Cheese is the other issue, stacking cheeseburgers does not work, and the cold cheese slice thing is lame. You can whip up a cheese sauce or use cheese whiz and have people squirt it on. A cheeseburger on a kaiser with fried or raw onions and whiz is pretty damn tasty actually.

[jbrink01]

We cater whole hog pork burgers and they always please! We grill until just done, then pan in sauce.

[Jeff Hughes]

The event went great.

My buddy Mike Hays(Smokedelic on this forum) helped me out, which was money well spent.

We did the 300 dogs in pans in the smoker and 300 burgers on a 2x5 charcoal grill(40 burgers at a time, 10 minutes per cycle). We had all the dogs and 200 or so of the burgers ready at 1120 as planned. Mike kept the burgers coming and 3 girls and I ran two lines.

They had a low turn out, 220 or so. We packed up leftovers for them and were on the road a little before 1pm.