First Semi Big Test cook

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grizzly0925

Knows what a fatty is.
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So I am doing a test cook of pork butt for a business I am starting and some local friends and family are sampling it.

I am running about 30lbs of pork butt and plan on delivering it at 12pm Sunday what time should i start the cook Saturday and start the hot hold in the oven? Thoughts? Thinking if I start around 4pm I might wrap up the cook around 3AM saturday and can hot hold in the oven before transferring to my catergator.

-All buts will probably range between 9-12 lbs.
-I will be running the pit at about 275
will probably pull at around 199-200 and set the oven at 170 so they can finish rendering in there before transferring to my catergator
 
What kind of cooker are you using? If you are using a cooker that allows you to sleep- pellet, vertical with draft fan, etc., you can set it to be done at 5 or 6 am. Pull from pit at 200 internal, drain juices from foil, wrap back up and hold for 4-5 hours. Then you can pull or chop(easier for larger cooks)and put in serving pans for delivery.
 
cowboyupbbq said:
What kind of cooker are you using? If you are using a cooker that allows you to sleep- pellet, vertical with draft fan, etc., you can set it to be done at 5 or 6 am. Pull from pit at 200 internal, drain juices from foil, wrap back up and hold for 4-5 hours. Then you can pull or chop(easier for larger cooks)and put in serving pans for delivery.
Click to expand...

Sorry using my 120 gallon offset
 
If you're doing a test run for your business then you should avoid relying on your oven and use your catering equipment instead. I was using a Cambro (similar to your CaterGator) for hot holding and I would preheat it with boiling water. This would usually give me about 6 hours of hot holding at 140-150F. I only did this one time as usually I'd finish cooking the meat at 8am and start serving at 11am.

At 275F you're looking at 6-8 hours of cook time for a normal pork butt, but I can see why you're allotting a couple extra hours to be safe. Have you tested out hot holding in your CaterGator before?

In terms of timeline that's very personal and specific to each person. I'm a morning person so it's easy for me to get up early (say midnight to 1 am), then fire up the cooker and prep the meat. Then get the meat on the smoker by around 2am, and cook until roughly 9am. Then a quick vent (since I do wrap), and into the hot hold while I start working on sides. I was just never able to sleep comfortably when I had meat cooking / resting as I'm always so concerned about temps.

Good luck with your test cook, but the big takeaway should be that you try to mimic as best you can what you would be doing during an actual catering gig.
 
SmoothBoarBBQ said:
If you're doing a test run for your business then you should avoid relying on your oven and use your catering equipment instead. I was using a Cambro (similar to your CaterGator) for hot holding and I would preheat it with boiling water. This would usually give me about 6 hours of hot holding at 140-150F. I only did this one time as usually I'd finish cooking the meat at 8am and start serving at 11am.

At 275F you're looking at 6-8 hours of cook time for a normal pork butt, but I can see why you're allotting a couple extra hours to be safe. Have you tested out hot holding in your CaterGator before?

In terms of timeline that's very personal and specific to each person. I'm a morning person so it's easy for me to get up early (say midnight to 1 am), then fire up the cooker and prep the meat. Then get the meat on the smoker by around 2am, and cook until roughly 9am. Then a quick vent (since I do wrap), and into the hot hold while I start working on sides. I was just never able to sleep comfortably when I had meat cooking / resting as I'm always so concerned about temps.

Good luck with your test cook, but the big takeaway should be that you try to mimic as best you can what you would be doing during an actual catering gig.
Click to expand...

Test cook went great. I did end up using my oven though as a ran out of small splits for fuel around 2am. Cook time went from 16/1630 till about 0400 i ran the pit around 250ish-275. with 4 8lb butts. then had to rest till about 11 and pulled and stored in the cambro till about 1400 Sunday.

Didn't run any sides just did sandwiches as I was trying to get input on my rub recipe and pork. Lots of great feedback. I am definitely going to be in the market for a used warmer in the future.

I didn't test hot holding the catergator yet so will be doing that this weekend to see how much actual time I could get out of it. I knew I could at least get the two hours i needed to hand out the food.
 
Just my experience but I had much better results keeping the pork butts whole while holding. I wouldn't pull the meat until just before service. Either way sounds good and I wish you success with your upcoming catering business.
 
Don’t pull until you’re ready to serve.
The texture will be all wrong.

Pulled pork does not hold well.

Ask the thousands of bbq restaurants that hold it in sauce (only way for it not to dry out while holding) and serve disgusting bbq pork
 
SmoothBoarBBQ said:
Just my experience but I had much better results keeping the pork butts whole while holding. I wouldn't pull the meat until just before service. Either way sounds good and I wish you success with your upcoming catering business.
Click to expand...

Thats how I would normally handle it but unfortunately I was doing pick up only at the brewery I was at. I couldn't technically serve there. noted for future though.
 
Don't wait for used get a Catergator from Webstaurantstore.com. we have 9 of them we use.

For this cook I would start at 3 am and wrap at 8am, done by 9:30am. Hold until serving. This is at 275

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