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The "I'm Cooking for a lot of People" Thread


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9 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

I'm pretty comfortable with where I like my briskets trimmed, anything I need to do different with a prime?

Side note - I have seem over the years a fuzzy line with briskets between Prime and Choice.  It's always been a traditionally crappy cut of meat.  Hence the length of time it takes to render the fat and soften the meat.  Touch and texture need to be applied.  How pliable is the brisket.  Fat distribution and marbling.  Prime briskets, in my experience cook faster - less fat generally.  That doesn't make them necessarily a better choice.  Careful not to over-trim, as they can dry out (especially the flat).  Beyond that, it's BAU.  

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Last brisket off and currently resting for a few before wrap. I still have two racks of short ribs and five shoulders finishing up. I should be good to drive up to the school by 12:30. Might need to finish the ribs on site. I would say the hard part is over but I'm sure I'd be way wrong.

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I'm spent. It was a lot of fun, though. Had a blast with my buddies serving food to a lot of parents and kids that I'm friends with. Food went over very well after a slow start due to the weather. Sold out of brisket (67 lb case). Sold over 200 hot dogs. Cooked 7 butts but we only went through 4. I was kind of surprised at that. People are apparently raving about it on facespace. 

The beef ribs never made it to prime time. I guess I need to take up one of those methods in the pit cleaning thread because in the 1/3 mile drive to school enough grease spilled into the firebox that the charcoal started a small grease fire and I had to shut it down due to nasty smoke. I had the beef ribs on wrapped but it never got hot enough for them to render. Never had that problem before driving after a cook. Not sure wtf. Have to rethink this. 

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Seems like I grossly over-estimated how many servings we would produce. 67 lbs of raw brisket yielded 41 1/2 lb servings according to what we have on paper. I spent about $900 on everything. Right now it looks like we made about $500 for the PTO. I was estimating about $700. Lots of water, chips and pulled pork left over and way less brisket serving volume than I thought. 

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Grad party was this afternoon. Smoked 4 brisket last weekend and reheated them this morning.  Used beef stock for liquid in reheating instead of beer. Skipped doing any sausage. The briskets were delicious. I've got enough left for one family meal.

Edited by ShaggyBevo RIP
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Seems like I grossly over-estimated how many servings we would produce. 67 lbs of raw brisket yielded 41 1/2 lb servings according to what we have on paper. I spent about $900 on everything. Right now it looks like we made about $500 for the PTO. I was estimating about $700. Lots of water, chips and pulled pork left over and way less brisket serving volume than I thought. 


???

134 “half-pounds” of raw brisket only amounted to 41 cooked servings?

That doesn’t seem right
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Seems like I grossly over-estimated how many servings we would produce. 67 lbs of raw brisket yielded 41 1/2 lb servings according to what we have on paper. I spent about $900 on everything. Right now it looks like we made about $500 for the PTO. I was estimating about $700. Lots of water, chips and pulled pork left over and way less brisket serving volume than I thought. 


There is no way that 67 lbs of raw brisket yielded only 20.5 lbs of cooked product. Your math is wron somewhere. That should have yielded about 50lbs cooked
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I'm still at a loss on this. I recounted the tickets this morning. 42 servings. Wife was off by 1. No missing check books. I sent one of my buddies who helped serve home with about ~ 6 lbs (he weighed it today upon request) of brisket that I deemed unservable and fit for burnt ends. Assuming I put orders together at closer to .75 lbs (instead of .5) - and looking at images on google I'm not sure I did - the math still doesn't come close. I don't get it. 

42 x .75 = 31.5 lbs

+ 6 lbs = 37.5 lbs

+ maybe way exaggerating 2 lbs in freebies/samples I gave out = 39.5 lbs

+ drunk asshole on crew who snuck too many tastes = 40.5 lbs

We are more than whole...we made at least $600. But it just doesn't add up and it's bothering me. 

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How long of slices Champ? Like entire width of flat in one piece slices? I definitely didn't serve that. A lot of mine was falling apart. Slices were thicker. I served up a few slices of each - point and flat - but they were thicker and maybe at max 4" in length. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Reviving this thread for Labor Day weekend.  Cooking for 30 or so for dinner on Saturday night.  Driving down to central Texas on Friday with WSM and PBC on a hitch carrier.  Unloading and starting the fire on on the WSM to cook a brisket and pork shoulder overnight.  Cooking three racks of baby backs and a chicken the next morning.  Sausage goes on last.  My first time using Stubbs briquettes and first time transporting the cookers.  Wish me luck.

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Made it to Central Texas in one piece, although the centwr section of the WSM almost came apart on the highway once. Strapped it down more thoroughly and no more problems.

Just put the brisket and butt on. I'll say this about Stubb's briquettes. They smell a lot more mild than KBB, but they take forever to get you to temp. Hopefully, that translates to stability once they get there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

20180909_194731.jpg

Screenshot_20180909_195053_Gallery.jpg

^^pre-smoked chicken wings, battered and fried on-site 

Screenshot_20180909_195156_Gallery.jpg

^^pre-smoked brisket, formed and breaded then refrigerated until fry time on-site 

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^^sauteed scrimp (obviously)

 

Had about 5 other hors d'oeuvres, small open house event at a wedding venue 

 

Wedding crashing season is almost upon me, again 

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  • 7 months later...
1 hour ago, Baboontyme said:

Pork butt for 150 people. Hot dogs, beans, salad, etc will also be served. 

I'm thinking ~ 90 lbs? 

90lbs cooked or raw?

Cooked - that's plenty

Raw - you're cutting it close, unless you're very confident that a good portion of your crowd will only eat a hotdog. Or you're serving pulled pork sandwiches and you are portioning the meat.

Edited by luke duke
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  • 2 weeks later...

It went pretty well from what I'm told. I did not go on site thankfully. Just wrapped and coolerd everything. I did not individually weigh each butt but I bought 2 cases (16) and avg weight was just under 9 lbs. I cooked 13 of them. I was kind of surprised they all fit. I could have definitely fit one more - maybe two. I was told they went over very, very well. There were 2 whole butts left over, and one made its way back to me for my kids to devour tonight. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/2/2019 at 9:50 PM, Baboontyme said:

Christ. Ok thanks. How many butts you think I can fit on a 24x48 with a shelf? 8? 

I have done 10 on mine and had room for 2 or 3 more.  Butts are just about the perfect shape for cramming a bunch on a pitt.

Edited by kevwun
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Better than last year (I think we cleared $800 for the PTO) but still room for improvement. No one bought the sausage. I think I sold 2 orders. It wasn't the heat, I guess it's just not a thing that people up here care to order. Idiots. The BBQ guy on my crew and a few others that sampled said it was the star of the show. The real star of the show was the brisket, tho. I went through 6 of them in 2 hours. I was not super happy with them and that was my fault - I pretty much wrapped them in butcher paper when they were done and threw them in the cooler. I opened that cooler to put more stuff in or take it out on-site and there was steam coming out. I should have let them rest but I figured basting wouldn't hurt. Some of the flat was impossible to cut and fell apart. It was still worlds better than anything people get up here. There were some slices of the dual brisket that could have been posted on Champ's IG on a slow day for him. :)

Most surprising, no one wanted pulled pork. I think the brisket was more on display and we had a rep from last year that contributed to it, but I only went through 2-2.5 butts. This may not work. _PNr5TnyUAPu_duGZjosUZyJ6WZEUIftmqDbOuBx

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3 hours ago, kevwun said:

I learned the hard way with a cooler also.  You have to let them cool off for quite awhile before you can close the lid.

 

Truth. I started leaving the temp probe(s) in and wait until it’s around 170ish internal before wrapping for the cooler, and preheat the cooler too. 

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