Cooking for 150-200 people this weekend

[CrackerJack from KC]

Big Church BBQ this weekend. Been planning it for about 6 months.

I think I am ready, cooking 100 pounds of Pork, and 75 pounds of Brisket. Buying all the sides and deserts from Costco and Samsclub. The weather looks like its going to be beautiful.

The plan is to take the meat out of the fridge around 5 pm and have it on the smoker by 6 pm for an all night smoke (BBQ is at noon). We are going to have 3 WSMs going.

I am going to use this experience to gauge whether or not I ever want to compete. It sure would have been nice to have my stoker working for this (locked up when I tried to upgrade), but sleep is overrated anyway.

 

[KC_Bobby]

Sounds like 12 butts and 6 briskets. Does 3 WSM's provide enough room for that or are you doing 2 runs?

 

[The Anchorman]

Do you have access to Convection or any Ovens at the Church Kitchen?
If so then smoke on the WSM's for 3 hours and then finish in the ovens. Same temps 250 to 280 degrees. I do not think you are leaving enough time for yourself with that amount of meat and only 3 wsm's.

Get the smoke on the meat and then low and slow it in the oven is my catering trick.:thumb:

 

[CrackerJack from KC]

Yes we do have access to ovens, and we are using 2 18 in WSM and 1 22 in WSM. I also have an extra 18 inch rack I could put on top of the top shelf of the 22" WSM, incase I need the room. Probably do the briskets in the 22 incher and the Pork Butts in teh 18 inchers.

 

[Bbq Bubba]

Your still short smoker room.
Maybe think about cooking ahead of time in probably at least 2 batches.

 

[BlkJeep]

Good luck. But I agree with the above comments, you may be short on room?

 

[FltEng]

I agree with an average of 8# butts you might be able to squeeze 3 butts on an 18 incher --if your lucky. Keep us posted with how it goes...

 

[The Anchorman]

Start tomorrow
and chill and slice
heat and serve
just make sure keep it out of the TDZ

 

[Smoke & Beers]

I've done several parties (100+ people) and last weekend was my first comp. There is no comparison...the comps are much more stressful IMHO.
Both are fun though!
Good luck and you still have time to make a couple of drums to add to your hardware if you are needing grill space :wink:

 

[CrackerJack from KC]

OK, you guys got me worried so much that I have now secured a 4th WSM. Now that I think about it, I should have known there wasnt enough room. I think four should suffice, I definately need to get more charcoal now.

The weather is suppose to be nice,

so here is a question, what do you guys cook for yourselves during a competition. I was thinking about italian sausages, steaks, maybe a Tri tip, just trying to do something different than hamburgers and hotdogs.

 

[The Anchorman]

Subway:clap2:

 

[SmokeInDaEye]

Good advice Ray. I'm considering cooking 80 or so pounds of pork next weekend for a fundraiser and the oven trick sounds like the way to go.

 

[wildflower]

LOL :laugh:

Subway:clap2:
__________________
Ray Depot, The Anchorman
The Anchormen, Rhode Island's Original Competition BBQ Team.
The BBQ TITANS

BWS Party, Chubby, WSM, 4 Kettles, 3 Performers, 1 Smokey Joe Platininum, Weber Genisis B, 2 Grey Thermopens
KCBS CBJ

 

[Rich Parker]

If you put the pork butt on its side you should be able to easily get 3 - 4 on each rack of the 18" wsm. I have seen pics of 5 on each rack but can't find it now.

Good luck!

 

[KC_Bobby]

Subway:clap2:

Big 10-4 on that. Quick, easy and filling.

Like Ray, I was thinking about the oven too. Lay the smoke and into the oven when foiled. Keep a few butts in the smoker the entire cook to humor the crowd and they'll never know the difference.

 

[CrackerJack from KC]

I like your ideas, I plan to use those ovens as needed for sure, one other thing I was going to do was right before church started was I was going to take one of the empty WSM's and load it up with hickory wood chips (cooking with apple and cherry) to get that smell of hickory smoke in the air.

You guys are killing me with the Subway references. Am I to take it that you have no desire to cook for yourselves while you are cooking for others. Just askng. It's a church gig, so I can' exactly drink my calories if you know what I mean, now if we were Catholic that would be a different story. :wink:

 

[KC_Bobby]

You guys are killing me with the Subway references. Am I to take it that you have no desire to cook for yourselves while you are cooking for others. Just askng.

It's not so much that I don't want to, it's a convenience thing. Less time, less packing, less cleaning = less energy spent and more time to relax/socialize.

 

[CrackerJack from KC]

It' over!!!

BBQ went well. We started putting on the meat, and we needed a 5th smoker, luckily we knew someone that had one. I ended up getting 20 minutes of sleep that night, but I learned a lot from all this.

Here is what I discovered.

• I underbudgeted the amount of time to prepare the meat before the cook and slice/pull the meat after the cook.
• The briskets (flats) got done way faster than the pork shoulders. So in response to this, I added more water in the middle of the night, which slowed down the briskets, but then also slowed down the pork. If I was to do it over again, I would let the pork water pans dry up and let the heat rise to get the pork up to 205.
• We pulled most of the pork off at 195, but the few that got up to 205 were much easier to pull and way less fatty grissley parts to throw away.
• A meat slicer is junk for cutting cooked brisket, a good knife is the only way to go.
• The product called bear claws is crap, I found a technique where you put on heat protective gloves and start squishing the meat, the meat would basically shred itself using this technique.
• You need to have a plan on how to keep the meat warm if it gets done early. We filled up 3 ovens, and then we started filling crock pots with pulled pork in order to keep everything warm enough after we sliced and pulled it.
• The best thing we found was one of those great big slow cookers, I bet we fit 3-4 pulled butts in one of those.
• We noticed that brisket was picked 2 to 1 over pork when given a choice (this is Kansas City after all)
• 300 brownie bites is NOT enough for 150 people, especially if they taste as good as the ones we got did.
• One interesting thing I learned that I could tell when a brisket hit 190 just by looking at it, it started to turn a certain color close to black on the outside. Once it would hit that color, I would hit it with the thermapen and it would always be 190-192 wherever I hit it.
• There is no such thing as too many smokers, learned that the hard way.

With all that said, everything turned our great, of the 11 briskets and 10 pork shoulders we cooked, we had one brisket that was over cooked, but 50% of that went into the beans to give them flavor. The pulled pork turned out great as well, and we had more compliments on the event than we ever hoped for. Attached is a photo around sunset that shows off our setup.

 

[BRBBQ]

Nice work, and a cheap slicer didn't work? Dang it, I was thinking about one again. How much meat did you have left over and did you foil during the cooks?

 

[CrackerJack from KC]

Had about 15-20 pounds of pork leftover. I had to foil ALL of the pork. I even then I had to fire up a 300 degree oven to finish off a couple of the pork shoulders, darn things just wouldn't come up to temp on the smoker.