Wampus
somebody shut me the fark up.
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2009
- Location
- Mooresville, IN
So, my kids' school has an annual auction. I typically donate 8 hours of "handyman" work, but this year my wife (as smart as she is) suggested that I do something that I enjoy doing anyway, like BBQ! So, I donated "BBQ Cook For A Day" and actually ended up with 2 different people bidding back and forth for it, which turned into 2 different events (SUCKER!!!) that EACH raised $300 for the school. This past weekend was the first of those events.
It ended up being quite a bit more than I'd originally intended, but a deal's a deal. Plus...it was for a good cause anyway. But, in all honesty, I've NEVER done anything of this magnitude. I've cooked for the entire extended family before, sure, but not NEARLY this many people. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much on Friday night (the event was Saturday)
Here's how it played out....
The "customer" was having a graduation party/open house for his daughter's HS graduation. He was expecting 200+ people and wanted ribs and pulled pork. I prefered to pick out and pick up the meats. I also made up the rub and offered to make a homemade sauce. I gave him the option of Carolina Mustard/Vinegar sauce (my favorite) or a St. Louis Sweet Red sauce. He chose the latter.
I ended up making 3 gallons of sauce 3 or 4 nights before hand. I bought 24 slabs of baby backs from Sam's (in triple cryopacks) and 10 boston butts (in the double cryopacks). I made a 20x recipe of KC's rub (from the Brethren cookbook---I LOVE that stuff and use it on everything!) and gave him the left over rub as he also paid for the rub supplies, which was mucn more cost effective to do from Sam's anyway.
I prepped, rubbed and tripple wrapped the butts on Thursday night, simply in the interest of time:
I had to borrow a buddy's 18" WSM and I took it and my mod'd Brinkmann over to his place on Friday night to do 7 of the butts. He ("customer") had an Orion SS Cooker and offered it up to cook on and I have always been curious about those things anyway, so I took him up on it. The Orion claims to be able to cook butts in 3 1/2 hours so I didn't need to put the last 3 butts on it until Saturday morning.
Here's the other 2 chugging along, both ROCK SOLID at 225 when I arrived back to his place on Sat (photo taken on Sat morn, as I forgot the stinkin camera on Friday night....GRRRRRRRRRRR!):doh::
My brother offered to come over to lend a hand prepping ribs on Sat morn, and I sure took him up on it:
I did the same rib recipe over Memorial Day Weekend for a "dry run" and did them in 3 hours on the UDS and they came out great. So, I planned on cooking 2 seperate batches of ribs. Dinner was to be served at 5, so I had the first batch (above) on the smoker at 9:30, giving me some "fluff time" to have the second batch on by 1 or 2. Here's the rest of the babys in the cooler:
Here's the first 12 racks, membrane removed, trimmed, slathered and rubbed:
I usually don't use a mustard slather, but I thought I'd give it a try to see if it helped create a better bark. I won't bother with it again. Didn't hurt anything, but as I've read on this forum many times, it did literally nothing to improve on anything. Just an uneccessary step, IMHO.
Here's the first 12 racks on the UDS (there's 6 on the lower grate....you gotta look close):
Here's all 4 cookers rolling. I fired his Orion after I put on the first round of ribs, right before this photo as youcan discern from the flames. The manual that I downloaded called for Match Light (I can't believe I actually bought a bag of match light! HA HA!!!):
Oh.....here's me prepping the ribs too. I believe this was the 1st round as a light rain started about 1/2 way through the day and we had to put up the shelter over the prep table, plus you can see the last 3 butts still on the table:
I realized after uploading photos that I have none of the shoulders during or after the cook:redface:. My wife (in photo below) was responsible for the photography as I was pretty busy all day with things and my hands were usually nasty. I brought the OTS as "backup" and to cook hot dogs for the kids. Here's the set up:
Turns out I needed the OTS too. As I should have guessed, the ribs weren't done at 3 hours, so I had to improvise. I pulled and held the 5 butts on the bullet and was able to get 6 racks on it to get them started (at about noon or 1:00). I opened another vent on the UDS and kicked up the temp. Within another hour I was able to pull 6 racks off of it to give space for the last 6 racks. Then I fired the OTS and set up indirect and finished the racks, 2 at a time, on it. I mopped with sauce, and let them cook for 10 minutes on the OTS (no photos). When I was finally able to clear the top rack on the UDS, I was able to finish 4 racks at a time on it. Here's a photo of 4 of them ready to pull:
And finally, 2 rib cuts, ready for the serving table:
I'm not just saying this, but these ended up being the best ribs and butts I've ever cooked. Ribs were perfectly done, not falling off the bone at all, but bit cleanly. Good amount of smoke, but not overpowering (each cooker had 1 chunk each of apple and cherry wood). The butts were pulled about 4 hours ahead of time, double foiled and held in a cooler. You still couldn't handle them bare handed at 4:30 when I started pulling the meat! They were all very tender and moist. I've gotten pretty good at butts over the last year, but I've had issues with them being overdone and a bit dry for my liking. Every single one of these was moist and tasty.
My review of his Orion Cooker was, well......it got the job done. I ended up lighting the coals and waiting 4-4.25 hours before opening it up to check them. Even though I used as much maple chips as I could squeeze in there, there was literally NO bark to speak of. You could literally wipe the rub off of the meat after the cook. The meat was definitely tender, juicy and the bone pulled right out, but the flavor was nothing special. I might as well have cooked them in my oven at home. I ended up mixing one of the Orion butts in with 2 or 3 of the others to integrate the bark so noone would notice a difference. Needless to say, I won't be purchasing one of them any time soon.....even though my youngest son's name is Orion and he thought it was cool that a smoker was named "after him".
All in all, as tired as I was after, it was a GREAT experience. I learned a lot. I've got one more of these things to do (for the auction) this summer. I've already had a couple people inquire about cooking for them as well: one family reunion and one church men's retreat.
I'm really getting into this 'Q thang. If this ends up getting more serious (cooking for others) I'll have to do some research and do it the RIGHT way (license, advertise, etc.) but we'll see. Right now, it's all about the experience and the fun.
Thanks for checking out my post! Hope you enjoyed the LONG A$$ explaination!!!
:bow::bow:
It ended up being quite a bit more than I'd originally intended, but a deal's a deal. Plus...it was for a good cause anyway. But, in all honesty, I've NEVER done anything of this magnitude. I've cooked for the entire extended family before, sure, but not NEARLY this many people. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much on Friday night (the event was Saturday)
Here's how it played out....
The "customer" was having a graduation party/open house for his daughter's HS graduation. He was expecting 200+ people and wanted ribs and pulled pork. I prefered to pick out and pick up the meats. I also made up the rub and offered to make a homemade sauce. I gave him the option of Carolina Mustard/Vinegar sauce (my favorite) or a St. Louis Sweet Red sauce. He chose the latter.
I ended up making 3 gallons of sauce 3 or 4 nights before hand. I bought 24 slabs of baby backs from Sam's (in triple cryopacks) and 10 boston butts (in the double cryopacks). I made a 20x recipe of KC's rub (from the Brethren cookbook---I LOVE that stuff and use it on everything!) and gave him the left over rub as he also paid for the rub supplies, which was mucn more cost effective to do from Sam's anyway.
I prepped, rubbed and tripple wrapped the butts on Thursday night, simply in the interest of time:
I had to borrow a buddy's 18" WSM and I took it and my mod'd Brinkmann over to his place on Friday night to do 7 of the butts. He ("customer") had an Orion SS Cooker and offered it up to cook on and I have always been curious about those things anyway, so I took him up on it. The Orion claims to be able to cook butts in 3 1/2 hours so I didn't need to put the last 3 butts on it until Saturday morning.
Here's the other 2 chugging along, both ROCK SOLID at 225 when I arrived back to his place on Sat (photo taken on Sat morn, as I forgot the stinkin camera on Friday night....GRRRRRRRRRRR!):doh::
My brother offered to come over to lend a hand prepping ribs on Sat morn, and I sure took him up on it:
I did the same rib recipe over Memorial Day Weekend for a "dry run" and did them in 3 hours on the UDS and they came out great. So, I planned on cooking 2 seperate batches of ribs. Dinner was to be served at 5, so I had the first batch (above) on the smoker at 9:30, giving me some "fluff time" to have the second batch on by 1 or 2. Here's the rest of the babys in the cooler:
Here's the first 12 racks, membrane removed, trimmed, slathered and rubbed:
I usually don't use a mustard slather, but I thought I'd give it a try to see if it helped create a better bark. I won't bother with it again. Didn't hurt anything, but as I've read on this forum many times, it did literally nothing to improve on anything. Just an uneccessary step, IMHO.
Here's the first 12 racks on the UDS (there's 6 on the lower grate....you gotta look close):
Here's all 4 cookers rolling. I fired his Orion after I put on the first round of ribs, right before this photo as youcan discern from the flames. The manual that I downloaded called for Match Light (I can't believe I actually bought a bag of match light! HA HA!!!):
Oh.....here's me prepping the ribs too. I believe this was the 1st round as a light rain started about 1/2 way through the day and we had to put up the shelter over the prep table, plus you can see the last 3 butts still on the table:
I realized after uploading photos that I have none of the shoulders during or after the cook:redface:. My wife (in photo below) was responsible for the photography as I was pretty busy all day with things and my hands were usually nasty. I brought the OTS as "backup" and to cook hot dogs for the kids. Here's the set up:
Turns out I needed the OTS too. As I should have guessed, the ribs weren't done at 3 hours, so I had to improvise. I pulled and held the 5 butts on the bullet and was able to get 6 racks on it to get them started (at about noon or 1:00). I opened another vent on the UDS and kicked up the temp. Within another hour I was able to pull 6 racks off of it to give space for the last 6 racks. Then I fired the OTS and set up indirect and finished the racks, 2 at a time, on it. I mopped with sauce, and let them cook for 10 minutes on the OTS (no photos). When I was finally able to clear the top rack on the UDS, I was able to finish 4 racks at a time on it. Here's a photo of 4 of them ready to pull:
And finally, 2 rib cuts, ready for the serving table:
I'm not just saying this, but these ended up being the best ribs and butts I've ever cooked. Ribs were perfectly done, not falling off the bone at all, but bit cleanly. Good amount of smoke, but not overpowering (each cooker had 1 chunk each of apple and cherry wood). The butts were pulled about 4 hours ahead of time, double foiled and held in a cooler. You still couldn't handle them bare handed at 4:30 when I started pulling the meat! They were all very tender and moist. I've gotten pretty good at butts over the last year, but I've had issues with them being overdone and a bit dry for my liking. Every single one of these was moist and tasty.
My review of his Orion Cooker was, well......it got the job done. I ended up lighting the coals and waiting 4-4.25 hours before opening it up to check them. Even though I used as much maple chips as I could squeeze in there, there was literally NO bark to speak of. You could literally wipe the rub off of the meat after the cook. The meat was definitely tender, juicy and the bone pulled right out, but the flavor was nothing special. I might as well have cooked them in my oven at home. I ended up mixing one of the Orion butts in with 2 or 3 of the others to integrate the bark so noone would notice a difference. Needless to say, I won't be purchasing one of them any time soon.....even though my youngest son's name is Orion and he thought it was cool that a smoker was named "after him".
All in all, as tired as I was after, it was a GREAT experience. I learned a lot. I've got one more of these things to do (for the auction) this summer. I've already had a couple people inquire about cooking for them as well: one family reunion and one church men's retreat.
I'm really getting into this 'Q thang. If this ends up getting more serious (cooking for others) I'll have to do some research and do it the RIGHT way (license, advertise, etc.) but we'll see. Right now, it's all about the experience and the fun.
Thanks for checking out my post! Hope you enjoyed the LONG A$$ explaination!!!
:bow::bow:
