My first bbq gig!

Well brothers... word has got around that my q is getting pretty good. We belong to a country club by our house (go ahead... snicker all youw want! I can take it) Anyway, we had a charity event for one of the members who has cancer and along with the gold tourney we had dinner and a silent auction. Some our friends got the idea while we were organizing the event to auction off a bbq for 8 put on by me... kinda an upscale bbq with paired wine and what not. I agreed and I got sold for $700 the other night and another couple asked if they could match it and get one too!

I'm going to keep it simple, but add some nice touches. I'm gong to do guryere stuffed fatties, pulled pork, and bb's. I want to offer a few choices of sauces and in an effort to kick it up a notch, I want to do a Raspberry Chipotle, a smoked onion, and a Bourbon Brown Sugar sauces.

Most people here in Florida like their ribs wet. I'm making 4 racks of ribs. Should I use a base sauce while in the smoker and allow them to add the specific sauces to their likeing when served (I'm not sure how that would work though), should I dedicate one rack for each sauce and have extra sauce on hand, or should I go with dry ribs and have them add the sauce as they wish?

Along with this, I'm making 7 cheese lobster mac & cheese, my signature cream of onion beer cheese soup, gilled pineapples and other good stuff.

It should be a nice dinner for them. We'll be serving and bartending and doing everything for them right in their own home.

Any advice you can give me would very much appreciated!

As requested... I've tweaked this soup over the last 3 years and I can tell you it's a crowd favorite. I'm not trying to brag, but everyone literally raves about it. Sometimes I leave out the beer and just use the entire amount of broth and it comes out just as good with just a little sweeter taste. I make it both ways pretty evenly.

View attachment Cream of Onion-Cheese Soup.doc

Norcoredneck said:

I would lightly coat the ribs on the last half hour. Kinda give a candy appearance.

Click to expand...

So basically dedicate one rack for each sauce? That's kinda what I was thinking only because I know a lot of people I talk to don't like adding sauce to dry ribs... it doesn't have the "cooked" feeling I guess. I like them both ways myself and find equal merit in both methods.

Well this is just for charity... it's certainly not something I could do for a living... not even on the side. It is a little fancy, but total, these people have donated $1400 so we gotta make it a bit upscale.

I gave it some more thought... I think I'm going to make 3 racks of ribs, and one sauce for each. Between everything else... 4 racks is way overkill. Thanks for the all the help guys. I'll certainly take pics.

I think I'll make the butts the night before, and trailer my smoker to their home in the morning and finish them there. I'll cooler them and immediately start the ribs. I think if I pull the butts around 195 instead of 205, that'll buy me some extra cooler time while ribs finish up. One time when I coolered for 6 hourse the meat was a bit mushy, but the other time, on the advice from some of you guys here, I pulled them early and they were perfect even after a long sit period while the ribs were smoking.

It should be fun. I think the actual date for the first dinner is Oct 18. I'm gonna do a run through next weekend. I'm still working on my raspberry chipolte sauce. So far, I havn't made anything that tastes better than what I've got out of the bottle from SAM's. I'm not opposed to that since I think it's actually pretty good, but I was hoping I could create something special. I'm still a little weak on my sauces. I can make a few good ones, but none that really blow your socks off. I'm gonna work on the smoked onion sauce this weekend just to toy around.

Thanks again guys!