So I was asked to cook for a cousin's wedding.

[Demosthenes9]

no problem. How many people ? Started out with about 70. Then went to 100. Final count is between 100 - 150.

Wedding is on Sunday, and of course, it's an hour away from me.

Here's the bill of faire:

Pulled Pork (10 Boston Butts, about 90lbs)
Spare Ribs (10 racks)
Brisket (4 or 6 flats, haven't decided yet.
20lbs grilled chicken (cooked on site on my Ranch Kettle)
40 burgers (on site)
40 dogs (on site)

Sides:
Smoked baked beans (7 1/2pans)
Smoked Mac and Cheese (6 1/2pans)
Red Tater salad (Sams)
Yellow Tater salad (Sams)
Slaw (4 pans, bagged mix with jar sauce)


Will be interesting to see how it goes. That said, the fun has begun.

First up was 4lbs of bacon, 6 green peppers and 6 onions (for the baked beans) on the Blackstone. Screwed up and didn't get pics of the bacon while it was cooking. But what can you do ?

Smoke Hollow 44 #1 with 5 butts and 2 pans of beans:

Smoke Hollow 44 #2 with the other 5 butts and 2 pans of beans:

Group shot of both Smoke Hollows:

Brisket, Ribs and Mac and Cheese will go on tomorrow night. Ribs will probably be done on the Smoke Hollow. Brisket will probably be done on my other Ranch Kettle.

 

[IamMadMan]

Looks like you are off to a great start....

I like to let the pork drip into my beans as well, great added flavors.

 

[Harbormaster]

Butts and beans are looking good.

Hopefully you have made arrangements for reheating everything...

 

[Ham14]

Wow! Looks fantastic. Those beans are going to be great. Good luck with everything.

 

[Bigr314]

Very nice start. Looking very good. Good luck to you.

 

[Demosthenes9]

Thanks guys !

harbormaster, the logistics are going to be kind of tricky, but hopefully it all works out.


Right now, I have 4 cold water baths set up to crash cool the beans. Lids will go on the pans and they will go in the fridge. When the butts come off, I'll let them vent off a bit then start pulling them. The pulled pork will go into half pans and will also be crash cooled in water baths. Together, that makes 17 half pans (if each butt fills a single pan.)

The smoker on the left will be picked up on Saturday and taken to the wedding location. It will serve as a warming/holding oven. I can fit 10 to 12 half pans in there if need be and I can dial in temps anywhere between 180 and 350.

Plan to put the briskets on my Ranch Kettle Saturday night some time after midnight. Will purposely try to run temps down around 225/250 to target a finish time of around 8/9am. They will already be in butcher paper and they'll go into a cooler to hold.

Ribs will be done in the vertical smoker and I'm aiming for them to be done around 9am. Will wrap them at that point and put them in the same cooler.

I'll then load the Smoke Hollow up with the baked beans and heat them for 1.5 hours at about 300ish. They should get nice and hot. Will put them in the same 150qt cooler with the ribs and the brisket. That gets us to about 10:30ish, which is when I'll put the 10 half pans of pulled pork in the smoker to bring them up to temp. They tool will go in the 150qt.

While all that is going on, I'll put the 6 pans of Mac and cheese together and load them up on the RK to smoke for about an hour or so and those pans will go into the cooler also.

Hmmm, now that I've put it all down on paper, I might need to double check and see how many pans that 150qt cooler will hold. if need be, I have a 125qt one as well.

At about 12:30, I'll put the coolers in the van and head to the wedding location. When I get there, I'll fire up the Smoke Hollow and the Ranch Kettle and see what needs to go where.

One thing I remember from a similar cook in the past is that once the beans are brought up to temp and they go into the cooler, they stay hot for freaking ever. They really hold their heat, to the point that the smoker might not really even be needed, but better safe than sorry.


Anyways, that's the gist of the plan.


Oh, should add that we have 8 rectangular chafers for the serving table, some will be heated with sterno for the hot food, others will be loaded with ice for the cold stuff.

 

[THoey1963]

Damn, that's a lot of food coming off several small cookers (compared to a big Shirley or something comparable). Good luck with it all!

 

[gtr]

That's a lotta good eats right there! Hoping to see some pix of the RK's in action, 'cause you're totally gonna have plenty of time to take pix. :heh:

Nice work!

 

[landarc]

Sounds crazy, but, planned.

 

[Dave M]

I wouldn't want to lift that cooler! Good luck, I bet it's going to be great.

 

[smoke ninja]

Good luck.

Sounds like more thsn enough food.

 

[Demosthenes9]

Damn, that's a lot of food coming off several small cookers (compared to a big Shirley or something comparable). Good luck with it all!

heh, only around places like this are my 44's considered "small". :biggrin1:
But yeah, I've loaded up what I have and I'd love to have a nice big Shirley right now to work with. Maybe one day.

That's a lotta good eats right there! Hoping to see some pix of the RK's in action, 'cause you're totally gonna have plenty of time to take pix. :heh:

Nice work!

Thanks Greg! I'll see if I can make the time to get some pics for you. If not, here's one of my previous cooks with both RK's (and my MiniRK) in action.

Sounds crazy, but, planned.

Crazy ? Yes. Planned ? Yes. Well planned and able to execute ? Ummm, will know soon enough. :mrgreen::mrgreen:

I wouldn't want to lift that cooler! Good luck, I bet it's going to be great.

Hahahha, I've learned that lesson. Cooler will be put in the van empty and half pans will then be loaded in. Onsite, will park next to where I want the cooler, then get someone to help drag in out and lower it to the ground :grin:

Good luck.

Sounds like more thsn enough food.

Thanks. I have one simple rule when it comes to cooking, which is "I WON'T run out of food".




UPDATE:

Here's four of the ten half pans of pulled pork.

Danged things took forever to cook. Guess it didn't help that I kept opening the doors to stir the beans and swap batches

 

[SPRfree]

wow what an impressive plan and cook

 

[Sol00]

Great pics! Great cook!

 

[Demosthenes9]

UPDATE:

Most of the plans ended up out the window. The person who was going to pick up one of my smokers burnt out his clutch, leading to a major change in plans. Ended up loading everything into my van, including my two smokers and did the cook on site. Things were going fine right up until a small fire flared up in my drip pan. I instinctively opened the door, slid the pan out and dropped it to the ground thinking I'd deal with the flames there. When the pan hit the ground, the water and drippings sloshed everywhere, spreading the fire a bit. It was a small fire, no big deal. Was easily put out with some baking soda. But, when the pan hit the ground and everything splashed out, some of it hit both my lower legs and man, it hurt. Luckily, no blisters or major burns, but it was painful.

Timing couldn't have been worse as that was about when the chicken, burgers and dogs were supposed to go on the RK. Luckily, my brother jumped in and manned the RK. That itself was an adventure as he's never used an RK and doesn't use charcoal either.

further complicating matters was that my smokers struggled to get up to the temps that I wanted. I think this was largely due to how much stuff they were loaded down with. Fortunately, I was able to juggle some things around and stay ahead of the serving line for the most part. It wasn't my most successful cook, and definitely didn't go off as planned, but people still loved the food, and that's what counts.

 

[Wolverine]

WOW what a story, its when you call an audible that works thats what makes you great. Sometimes its the simple things we forget that makes it a PITA.

 

[Titch]

That,s a big effort mate,even with your problems you came thru, well done.
I would have got drunk and said stuff it