holding greens

I generally purchase on my way to the comp, then take them out of the plastic bag when I get to the comp. At the comp, they get put them in a dollar store plastic dish pan in a cooler with a few inches of ice below the dish pan. Then put a few damp (not heavy dripping wet) paper towels over directly the greens. It the summer, I'll add a few pieces of ice over the paper towels once or twice. Seems to work for me. Keeps them green and firm.

Then I do the boxes late at night after the brisket and pork goes in the smoker. At that point, I dump any water in the cooler, add ice as needed and put the boxes back in the cooler with a damp paper towel in each of them, with a few pieces of ice on the paper towel.

I use a cooler for just the greens. It only gets opened when needed and keeps the boxes clean.

I'd love to hear other methods, I think I may be going overboard.

I normally stick mine in a cooler for the first day...then after breakfast on day 2 we pull them out and prep them. take the heads of lettuce part and dunk everything in ice vinegar water. then we lay the leaves out on a long roll of paper towels and roll them up. These go into the ice water cool which was dumped out except for a little ice until we prep the boxes...this way we can just unroll a bunch of leaves and start putting togeth boxes when itis time...

of course since we are doing a FBA event next weekend I dont have to worry about garnish.

I've heard a bit of vinegar gives them a bit of life if needed. But I don't know how much - ratio to water?

Debbie Davis and Trish Trigg cover this at their classes. They keep parsley for up to 2 weeks and it still looks amazing. Special green bags and cooler.

I'll pick up my Royal parsley on Wednesday morning and it will look great Friday and Saturday night when I prep the boxes (if solo unsually about 2.5 to 3 hours).

Ford said:

Debbie Davis and Trish Trigg cover this at their classes. They keep parsley for up to 2 weeks and it still looks amazing. Special green bags and cooler.

I'll pick up my Royal parsley on Wednesday morning and it will look great Friday and Saturday night when I prep the boxes (if solo unsually about 2.5 to 3 hours).

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yeah you can buy those special salad bags at some places...i think that we picked one up for $5 a while back...I dont really have any need to keep parsley for 2 weeks though.

Keeping contest greens fresh...

We keep ours in the bottom part of the fridge in the RV now, but when we did everything in coolers, we sealed them up in ziplock bags, shake them all dry first and add a few paper towels. They'll absorb any extra humidity and help keep the green stuff from getting slimy.

We don't use leaf lettuce anymore, only parsley and it's WAY easier. Parsley is more resilient and you only have one thing to buy.

I use a cooler with 4 or so inches of ice and keep it drained and refilled as needed. That's the only thing I keep in that cooler so it doesn't get squashed or too much moister.

We make all our boxes at about 10 am and then place them back in the cooler on top of the ice and the lettuce has always looked great.

you've got to see Alton Brown's show on lettuce if you havent already. all these things, paper towels, ice, ziploc bags and stuff - it's on there. I never heard the vinegar thing though, maybe I'll try that some time. I had green leaf and parsley in my fridge that we prepped for Lowell two weeks ago, and I could have used it in Clarence. It still is better looking than the stuff I just bought.