Cooking Ribeyes for 200

Well, I've been friends with my dentist for 15 years, went to church camp with his kids, danced in the balcony with them as the coolest worship artists led us, and now, I get to cook for his daughter's wedding.

The wedding is being held about 3 hours away, and the groom really likes Ribeyes. Can't fault him for that! So, we are going to buy a couple cases of G. F. Swift 1855 Black Angus Choice+ Ribeyes, grill them, and smoke some chicken thighs for the non-red meat eaters. (We'll need to pray for the folks who don't want to eat ribeyes...)

We'll cut the Ribeyes 3/4 inch thick. I've not cooked any of the 1855 Ribeyes yet, buy based on the 7 cases of briskets from them we've done in the past few months, they will be great!

So, I've become a pretty good steak cooker, and I can cook a bunch of BBQ on my smokers (large insulated cabinet, couple of 22.5 WSM's, etc.), but I have not cooked steaks in mass like this.

I have a few leads on a large trailer grill that I can bring over to cook them.

Or, I am in the process of buying a quality 24x48 charcoal grill, that I can put on my BBQ Concession Trailer (when i get it in the next little bit). (Yoder's 24x48 looks really cool.) If I do that, I can bring my large insulated Cabinet smoker both as a chicken cooker and a warming cabinet, adding to the versatility of my capacities that day.

Questions:
1.) General tips on cooking 3/4 inch Ribeyes and storing in the Cambro for up to an hour or so.

2.) How many do you think I could cook on the 24x48 inch charcoal grill in an hour?

3.) With steaks that thin, I'm wondering if I could handle cooking more than 24x48 space at a time and keep the quality up?

4.) I could warm them up before the cook in the insulated cabinet smoker, raise the heat and charcoal level on the grill, and shorten the time on the grill? A mini-reverse sear with a thiner steak?

5.) Do you have a bigger charcoal grill that you just love that I should look at getting?

This is going to be fun!

Landarc,

So, what if rather than par cooking earlier and cooling, I Par-Cook them in my large cabinet smoker right then, bringing the Internal Temp to 110-120, then I give them a quick sear on the Grill, then store in the Cambro for serving in the next hour?

That would shorten the time they need to be on the grill, increasing the speed I could grill 200 of them on a 24x48 grill.

Well, I've got a plan.

Use #WhoDat1, my big Cabinet Smoker, to bring them up to 110 degrees or so. I'll clean the grates and power wash them before the cook.


Next, I'm purchasing this 24x48 Charcoal grill from Pitmaker, the Grill-Meister. It's got a ton of travel to raise and lower the charcoal basket, I can reload coals from the front without having to remove the grill grates, and it's got a 2nd shelf for quick adjustment of moving done steaks off the heat while the others finish up for a minute or two.
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I'll finish the 3/4 inch Ribeye's to 130ish, and put them in the Cambro. I'm expecting bring the Cambro's, expecting carry-over heat to finish them to 140 or so.

I'll buy a whole ribeye, cut to 3/4, have a party and practice this technique at the house before I go cook the wedding for a friend.

Also, I'll use the Cabinet smoker to smoke about 100 chicken thighs before we do the steaks.

What do you think?