New and Freaking Over BBQ Gig This Weekend

There's a lot of bone weight in whole chicken. You'll lose more than 25%

Your raw/cooked numbers are down to the wire. At those "loss in cook" percentages (which are pretty standard) you would end up with ~101, 3 oz servings of pork and ~112, 3 oz servings of chicken. Personally I would bump that up by at lease 10% so you end up with some buffer. The 10% buffer would mean 42 lbs pork & 31 lbs chicken raw, yielding 112 servings of pork and 123 servings of chicken. You don't mention if it is self serve or if you are serving so as to control serving sizes. If self server a buffer is a MUST.

I will let others wade in on the "method" questions. :mrgreen:

NOTE: fnbish is correct.....we never see 75% yield on whole chicken. Ours runs around 50%.

Without going into detail on the rest of your questions, you have a big surprise as whole chickens only yeild 35%. I would advise to cook either boneless breasts or thighs or a mix where your yeild is much higher.

You should plan on at least 4 oz per meat. if you run short this will be your first AND last job.

WindRiver said:

Hi There,

Brand new to the forum and BBQ catering. Have an event for 100 with pulled chicken and pulled pork and 3 sides. I'm portioning 3 oz of each meat (calculating 50% shrink on pork and 25% shrink on whole chicken).

Totals -

38 pounds uncooked bone in shoulder
28 pounds uncooked whole chicken

Sound close?

Also, I'm dropping off at 2 pm Saturday. Any chance I can do an overnight slow smoke (215/225) and have that run for say 12 hours - take that out and then do the chicken (300?). I've got a Myron Mixon v33 so plenty of space - I'd just rather not get up at 3 am and hope that everything cooks in time.

Does everybody wrap their pork butt or since I'm smoking at such a low temp will it stay moist overnight.

All advice welcome!

Thanks!

Kevin

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I am thinking maybe you should outline your timeline in a little more detail as it sounds a bit off to me. Also, how much experience do you have cooking butts on that particular smoker at the various temps?

Glad to have you here. What smoker did you get? If you have done parties for 100 you can handle it with a smoker. You just have to extend your time line. Butts will take 8-12 hours depending on the temp you cook at. I use chicken breast in my restaurant. I get the 40# random boneless. They run about $1.70/#. Whole chickens are a pain in the butt. Let us know if you need any other help.

WindRiver said:

Hey Guys,

The answer is I have zero experience on this new smoker and have decided to send the client to another local BBQ restaurant that can do this in a snap for her. I'm realizing it's just too big of a ramp up to go from zero to 100 (literally) on a new smoker in a short period of time - not to mention the fact that I have another bridal shower I'm catering that afternoon. I want the client to have a great event and I don't have enough experience yet to pull it off with 100% confidence. I'll spend the next month practicing and then I can get into something this big. It's the best thing for the client and me. Thanks for your advice - it helped me come to this decision. The great news is that my business is cranking up very quickly - but I need to manage the growth responsibly - and at this stage - sometimes that means saying no.

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IMO this was a very good decision on your part. Not that it would have been but it "could have been" a disaster. Your choice to learn and practice before tackling a relatively large event like this will serve you well in the future. You are well ahead of "the noobie pack" with that type of thinking. Let us know if there is any assistance we can give in the learning/practice aspect.

WindRiver said:

Hey Guys,

The answer is I have zero experience on this new smoker and have decided to send the client to another local BBQ restaurant that can do this in a snap for her. I'm realizing it's just too big of a ramp up to go from zero to 100 (literally) on a new smoker in a short period of time - not to mention the fact that I have another bridal shower I'm catering that afternoon. I want the client to have a great event and I don't have enough experience yet to pull it off with 100% confidence. I'll spend the next month practicing and then I can get into something this big. It's the best thing for the client and me. Thanks for your advice - it helped me come to this decision. The great news is that my business is cranking up very quickly - but I need to manage the growth responsibly - and at this stage - sometimes that means saying no.

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That sounds like the best decision. You don't need years or even months of experience, but at least a little.

For future reference and help with getting going....
As far as cook timetables, for comps I cook butts a little hot and a little fast and wrap, but catering ain't a comp. When I am cooking for one of my events, I load up my smoker, usually with bigger butts in the 9+lb size, and cook at 250. I do not open the smoker for 12 hours, do not wrap, do not spritz or mop or anything. The pork goes in cold from fridge with rub I previously applied. Now, I use FEC120s that have convection fans, so you may or may not need to cook 10-20 degrees hotter depending on how accurate and steady your temps are and performance of your cooker. I think the mixon smoker should be a moist enough environment that wrapping won't be needed, especially with a big load in it.

Now, as far as timing, I would put my pork on at 4pm, and have it done at 4am. It would go from the smoker into the cambro whole and be held until about 10am where it would be pulled and served. Now, my reason for this timetable, I leave the house for the event at 6am, I wanted to give myself a 2 hour buffer from 4am to 6am in case the pork isn't ready. Realistically with the performance of the FEC120 I could cut that buffer down to 1 hour if I wanted, but 2 hours in general is a good idea.

You can play around with times and temps to get to what works best for your cooker and your schedule. For me, pellet cookers put out way less smoke at temps above 280 and they are easy to run for long stretches of time unmonitored so it makes sense to do slower cooks at lower temps. I took Myron's class in Georgia and I know he cooks on his cookers at 325, but he foils. If you go hot you are going to need to foil, but at low temps it shouldn't be needed.