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How much sauce for pulled pork?

cmcadams

cmcadams

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In 2 weeks, I'll be serving pulled pork sandwiches in large quantity for the first time. My question is:

How much sauce do I need to have ready? I'm figuring potentially 800 sandwiches a day, cooking 50 butts each day, planning on about 4 lbs yield from each butt at 4 ounces of meat per sandwich.

How much sauce will I need to have on hand for that many sandwiches?
 
Ok, that's more than I've ever done. Let's see if Chad will chime in here soon.
 
Hard to say, Curt, based on personal preferences of 800 people. But I think I'd have at least two gallons on hand. Go LIGHT on the sauce if you're serving it on the meat and have a gallon with one of those pump lids screwed on available to the side for folks to add more if they want it.
 
Sams sells the little clear bottles with squeeze/squirt lids - allows people to control the amount they take. I find people take a Tbsp. or less when they squeeze, vs. having to spoon or pour... they tend to get more.

I usually get 3 Gal of sauce from Sam's club, and fill the squeeze bottles... put the number of bottles out that folks will be able to use.... 2-4 in the line for sandwiches. Keep two back for swapping for empties. - or if you dont mind spending the extra $4-5, get 12 bottles, fill them all and call it good. - just only put 4-6 out.

if you figure a sandwich squirt is about 1/2 oz. and there are 128 oz. in the big jars, that should be about 750 sandwiches worth of sauce.

I have found that even though my meat never needs sauce... joe consumer, doesnt even TASTE the meat before squeezing a little sauce on it. Assume that 90% will sauce!!
 
Just did a little side math.

256 Tablespoons in a gallon.

So, I you estimate AVERAGE use is 2 Tablespoons per serving--128 servings per gallon.

Adjust the average to what you expect to serve, realizing some will want little or no sauce and some fools will drown in it!

Just one approach. :redface:

TIM
 
I keep about 5 gallons on hand almost all the time. Just never know what any given day will bring. Some days I can't keep enough "Take home" bottles filled.
Then again I might go a week without selling any.
Then there are the days that people appear to be drinking the stuff.
 
You've all found my dilemna.... How much do people put on one sandwich? I'm going to have to just test it this weekend, I think....

I'll probably measure out starting with half a tablespoon and see if that's normal for a sandwich, then adjust from there. We won't put any on the pork to start with, letting people add if they want.

Andy, I like the idea of getting the bottles and holding some back. We'll probably do that.

I can't decide right now between making 6 gallons of sauce or buying it. On one hand, I want to make sure the sauce they get is my sauce; on the other, that's a LOT of sauce to make!
 
Are you also planning on saucing the pulled-pork before you serve it? with a 50/50 mix of sauce and vinegar?
 
I didn't service 800 people but 100 people ate my BBQ at the campout on Friday and Saturday nights.

What I did since I make several difference kinds of sauce I put 5 different kinds in those squeeze bottles and marked each one for what it had. Later they told me which one they liked the best.

From what I took I would say they used up a little over a gal of sauce.
 
cmcadams said:
Joe, any guess on how much an average sandwich gets?
Click to expand...
Once again, tough call but maybe this will help.
On all my sandwich "to-go" orders I put in one of those plastic lidded souffle cups. I use the 2oz version.
It is very rare that a regular "to-go" customer asks for additional sauce.
The two ounce pc cup holds three tablespoons.
Then again, my sandwiches are closer to eight ounces.

My school of thought is give them a little more than enough, and by using the pc's you can control how much you give and can better figure your food cost.
 
bbqjoe said:
Once again, tough call but maybe this will help.
On all my sandwich "to-go" orders I put in one of those plastic lidded souffle cups. I use the 2oz version.
It is very rare that a regular "to-go" customer asks for additional sauce.
The two ounce pc cup holds three tablespoons.
Then again, my sandwiches are closer to eight ounces.

My school of thought is give them a little more than enough, and by using the pc's you can control how much you give and can better figure your food cost.
Click to expand...

I am one of those customers that always asks for extra BBQ sauce because what I don't use on my sammich (I use very little on my PP sammich) I drink. I love BBQ sauce. When I was young (~6 to 9 years old) my pop used to whip up a batch and wonder why half the bottle was gone before being used until he caught me squirting it into my mouth right from the squirt bottle. I didn't catch my normal whupping because he laughed his ass off.
 
Sawdustguy said:
until he caught me squirting it into my mouth right from the squirt bottle.
Click to expand...
Okay, So you're the guy!!!!!

But I did forget to mention, that I also have the squirt bottles on the tables as well.

Some folks will actually squirt a pool on their plate and not even use half of it, but that's just the nature of the beast.

The cost for my home made sauce comes out to about .05 cents an ounce, so I build in about ten cents for a sammi.
 
Also if you're going to be filling lots of squirt bottles, this little gizmo comes in quite handy.
DSC00501.jpg



DSC00502.jpg


DSC00503.jpg


 
I have seen that... never thought I'd need it, but I'm going to have to get one!

I just talked to my meat supplier... Premium Standard Farms pork butts, 10 per case... he's working up the price, but he's given me great prices in the past.

and for sauce, he's giving me a price on a good sauce he makes at $12/gallon, and he's spotting me 5 cases of his sauce to buy at $3/bottle, sell for $5, and just return whatever I don't sell, so we can make a few bucks on selling his sauce, too.
 
I like that filler.... much more adept than the funnel I was using :eek:)
 
If you're doing this regularly then just keep a case on hand...in a few weeks you'll be able to get a handle on actual usage. I usally guestimate using the "serving" listed on the bottles...and then get a bit more.

I always overbuy on stuff like this...it keeps. Squeeze bottles do control amounts better than a small ladle or spoon. The souffle cups are a good idea..you can fill them ahead of time, etc.

Keep an eye on your food costs...you need to determine what your actual average yield on meat...I usually figure 60% on bone-in pork and that's proved to be pretty accurate for me...you need to determine the average size of the butts you're getting, too. Most I'm getting are averaging about 7# by the case...doing the math on your 50 butt plan you'll get about 840 1/4# sandwiches. Remember, these are all "pie-in-the-sky" estimates. Obviously, if you get a better yield or serve bigger sandwiches you'll need to adjust the amounts.

Oh yeah, count and weigh your cases...especially when you first start out. Average cases around here are about 72# with IBP. Other packers vary from 40# to 80# depending on the number of butts in their "case".

Good luck.
 
Chad, I'll be getting 8-9 lb average butts, but this is a once-a-year gig... Up to 400,000 people if the weather is good, coming to a town of 2500 for a weekend.

I was being conservative, guessing 800 sandwiches per 50 butts. The good part of being conservative is that, if there's more, it will either sell, or the guy we're working with will buy it and freeze it to sell later. He wants to talk after this about doing a once-a-month pulled pork day... I'm all for it!

I bought several gallon jugs and pumps to fit on them, to have 3 pumps at a time, one for 3 different sauces. We're going to start cooking on the 12th, overnight, doing 50 butts, then pulling and storing while 50 more go on Friday, then again Friday night if the weather's going to be good. So we will potentially be cooking about 1200 lbs of butts for a weekend!

Good advice on the weighing of the cases. We thought about getting cheaper pork, but we're getting a good price on Premium Standard Farms, which seems to be top quality pork. We're going for quality as well as quantity. :)

The bad part is that, because of it being a festival, the guy we're working with is being careful about how we're doing this (that's not the bad part). He wants to not say anything about us doing the pork; we're just working for him, in effect, for the weekend. The cash we'll make allows me to not care. :) And the once-a-month gigs will be done advertising that we're doing it. He's a local, and he's more than willing to help us out in the long run.
 
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