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First Big Crowd Cook

Cack

Cack

is Blowin Smoke!
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I'm going to do a big cook for friends and need to know how many I can feed. I have a 36 Lang and it can hold about 70lbs, so how many would that do?

I would guess a little more than a person a pound.
 
This is a rough guess, and someone who knows more than I will likely be along shortly, but I'd say you can figure 50% yield (I assume you're talking about pork butts), so that'll give you approximately 35# of cooked pork, and you can figure 3 or 4 sammiches per pound depending on the crowd you're feeding. There are a lot of threads on this subject in this forum, so if you dig around you'll definitely find some good info.
 
100 to 110 people with butts, you could stretch it to 140 people if each gets a 4oz sandwich. That would be max.
 
There's really 2 questions, yes? Can a Lang 36 get 70lbs of butts on there, yes, but VERY VERY tightly. Watch your air circulation carefully. Yield should be something like 45 lbs pulled.

Then, how many will this feed? If you have eaters, and all they're eating will be 1, 2, or a pig might eat 3 sandwiches, then you're looking at 3/4ths of a pound per person, so maybe 55 to 60 eaters. 70 if they're not big eaters. 80 to 100 if there's lots of other stuff for them to eat.

Ribs, another story altogether. Some just serve a few bones per person. I dont know about you, but 'round here I've average about a full rack per person, but then these folks are EATERS. Frankly, they'd probably eat 1.5 racks if I ever made that many. I've yet to have leftover ribs except for the time we cooked 16 racks and only 6 people showed up, and even then we only had a few left-over... Ribs take up a lot of room for only a small amount of meat cooked...

You might want to cook, what, 6 butts and pull them off and into a cooler (warmer) while you load-er-up and cook the ribs.
 
Lake Dogs said:
There's really 2 questions, yes? Can a Lang 36 get 70lbs of butts on there, yes, but VERY VERY tightly. Watch your air circulation carefully. Yield should be something like 45 lbs pulled.

Then, how many will this feed? If you have eaters, and all they're eating will be 1, 2, or a pig might eat 3 sandwiches, then you're looking at 3/4ths of a pound per person, so maybe 55 to 60 eaters. 70 if they're not big eaters. 80 to 100 if there's lots of other stuff for them to eat.

Ribs, another story altogether. Some just serve a few bones per person. I dont know about you, but 'round here I've average about a full rack per person, but then these folks are EATERS. Frankly, they'd probably eat 1.5 racks if I ever made that many. I've yet to have leftover ribs except for the time we cooked 16 racks and only 6 people showed up, and even then we only had a few left-over... Ribs take up a lot of room for only a small amount of meat cooked...

You might want to cook, what, 6 butts and pull them off and into a cooler (warmer) while you load-er-up and cook the ribs.
Click to expand...

Well, he hasn't invited me, so he's all good.:p
 
I guess I know how I eat so I was taking that into account. I've cooked 40lbs at once and still had some room that I thought I could cook another easily. I think once I tried to go 6-7 butts it'd be pushing it a bit.

My plain was to cook the butts the day before (or maybe do an over night cook) then do the ribs to be ready once people got there. I would probably do the ribs and cut them in a couple of bones. I wouldn't let people just dig out on them.

I think 50 people would be a safe number to guesstament to show up. We'll also have sides and things of that nature, so 5 butts and a couple of ribs should be fine?
 
I would think for 50 you would want about 12 racks for 4 bones each or about 16 racks for 3 bones each. That's at least how I would plan it.

Edit. I think I meant 12 racks for 3 bones, 16 racks for 4 bones. Yeah, there's a reason I'm not a caterer or math teacher.
 
Last edited:
If I do both. I figured I'd do 8 racks max. Not everyone likes ribs or choose to eat ribs (I don't get it either so don't ask me).
 
So, I'm thinking 5-6 10lb butts and around 8 racks with sides. That sound like it'd cover?
 
Yes, I think so, frankly with room to spare. Last cook I did was for 42-44 people; I did 6 large butts and 8 racks of babyback ribs. Like always, the ribs were snarfed up fast (I was out in the boat; none there when it came time for me to eat), but even serving EATERS many times (2 people came back for, and I'm not kidding here, 7th helpings), we still had some leftover pulled pork. Your 5 or 6 butts should hold their own without the ribs...

* OFFICIAL NOTE: We serve Coke, REAL Coke, ala. Coca-Cola because I'm from Atlanta (home of Coca-Cola). Not cocaine! However, by the way a few of my dear friends and nephews eat, you couldn't tell that the BBQ wasn't coated in cocaine....
 
Cack said:
So, I'm thinking 5-6 10lb butts and around 8 racks with sides. That sound like it'd cover?
Click to expand...

We do a cook every first Thursday in September for our lodge, usually around 100-120 people show. We do 3 cases of spare ribs for a total of 27 slabs. We cut those into thirds, they never last. We also do a case of boston butts, for a total of 8 butts. We usually have pulled pork left over. We also serve sides.
I figure on 20-25 sandwhiches per butt, and that usually gets me through.
 
Should I assume everyone is talking around 10lb for an average on the butt size?
 
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