Graduation Party Help - Suggestions Please

First, I have to thank everyone here for the great info on this site. I have been cooking on a Bandera for 3 years. With all the mods and techniques from this site, I have produced plenty of great Q that gets compliments all the time.

My son is graduating this month and he wants my brisket for the party instead of getting it catered – that’s my boy! I take it as a compliment and have no problem doing it. Since I usually just cook for small family gatherings of 10 – 12 people, I want to run my plans by you guys that have a whole lot of experience cooking for bigger events.

We know there will be 25 adults for sure and then my son’s friends that come – you know how 18 year olds are – he said he is inviting up to 20 but is not sure how many will be there to eat as they are making the rounds to parties that night.

With that info, I bought 3, 10-12 pound, briskets to cook on the dera. I plan to cook 6 packages of sausage, and have 24 hot dogs and hamburgers for people that do not want bbq. Also going to do a 10 pound shrimp boil (cannot help it – right off the boat from Galveston Bay).

Questions/ Thoughts

1. Plan on doing the briskets in the dera – high heat (275 – 300) - that morning and have them ready for a 6 p.m. dinner. 3 hrs to 165*, 2 hrs wrapped to 195*, then 3-4 hrs in a towel holding. Comments?
2. Do you think 3 briskets is enough with all the other food?
3. I am off Friday and can cook the brisket Friday so I have more time to set up for the party on Saturday, but I am not sure how to reheat. Any suggestions on heating it back up on Saturday if I go this way? Can I pull off at 170* on Friday, put in a cooler with ice, and finish on Saturday? Never tried anything like that – always eat brisket same day as it is cooked.

Thanks in advance,
Dan

Leaning towards Friday Cook

Thanks for the suggestions - I am leaning towards cooking on Friday and going with the cooking it complete, slicing, and reheating in the Bandera Saturday more to keep from heating the house up than the show of the Bandera.

Friday it is

Thanks for all the input, I am going to cook on Friday, leave the brisket wrapped and reheat and slice on Saturday. Might as well have a bbq cook party on Friday and then the graduation party on Saturday.

I don't know about posting the address, but I will post some pics.

Thanks again,
Dan

Finally, here are the pics from the party.

The brisket turned out great - almost all of the three whole briskets were gone and nothing was left of the shrimp boil.

The great suggestions I got on this site really made a difference - they were:

1. Cooked the brisket on Friday instead of the day of the party (Saturday)

2. After the briskets rested in a cooler for 3 hours, I opened them up, sucked the juice out and saved it, let them cool to almost room temp and then wrapped them real good in Suran wrap and then in two layers of foil and put them in a cooler with ice for the night. The next day I fired up the 'dera and heated them up to 140 slowly (still in the Suran wrap and foil). I then sliced and poured a little of the de-fatted juice back over them. It really came out great - you cannot believe all the complements from the adults and the kids. You had to be quick to get some with twenty-two 18 year olds in line.



Thanks again for the great suggestions.