PaulstheRibList how many butts are you cooking in total?
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I know I've said it before I'll say it again, You're The Man!Comment
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Wow spectacular!Comment
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yay an uncle BBQ story!Comment
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I thought I was bad azz when I cooked 28!Comment
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That is quite impressive, nicely done!Comment
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90 Butts Done!
also, something like 160 pounds of Cole slaw...Done!
and 24 pans of smoked beans in the cooker!
Oh, and we have about 1,100 drumsticks rubbed and in the fridge.
I doubt I sleep more than an hour tonight!Attached FilesComment
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Now we officially have a "Pork Butt" King.Comment
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I'm very impressed, love that smoker! All I have to say is: butt-ylicious!
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There's already fun to be had on a sandwich line.Comment
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It's Done!!!!!!
I know you guys might not believe me, but cooking 1,000 pulled pork sandwiches, 1,000 chicken legs, 23 pans of beans and 160 pounds of coleslaw and getting about 26 people lined up to help you assemble the hot food in about 30 minutes is not easy.
Here is round 2 of the pork butts, mid cook. Don't they look pretty!
Here they are right when I was about to pull most of them. Having the cooker more full definitely lengthened the cook time by a few hours. I took a little video which I'll upload and put a link to for you guys. (Here it is, https://youtu.be/6f1H9RYuJrE) The temps on the big Mixon are close in all the racks, but the top is hotter. The butts on the top rack were about 8 degrees hotter on Internal Temp than those of the bottom rack when I pulled. They all went into the CVAP for a pretty long hold, and that helps even things out if a few of them were not perfectly probe tender when pulled.
We could have stuffed the cooker with more butts, but I could not have cooked all 90 (or 94, I can't quite remember) at once, so I just evened out the 2 rounds.
As I've shared before, we use a generous helping of the ole' Memphis Dust, and it creates a beautiful, dark bark. We cooked these at 250-275 on our all wood burning stickburner.
The grate on the firebox has melted through, letting the coals fall onto the floor of the firebox. On a full cooker smoke, I like to run a dual fire system, so we get heat more disbursed, and don't have to run as big a single fire. Well, this grate situation complicated that. Also, my current wood supplier gives us this really well seasoned pecan, but it's in huge splits, with makes fire management more complicated. The huge firebox does allow me to pre-warm several logs. A hot, well-seasoned log is really good news for a stickburning pitmaster - they burn right away! I'll have to take a video of it for you fellow stickburners to enjoy! #InstantPoof #InstantlyEngagedWithBlueSmoke
Do I look hot? Tired? I just went to Colorado for week with the family. Upper 40's at night, 70s in the day, low humidity...wow! This pic is around 10pm and it's in the 80's and must be 95% humidity...I'm drenched!
OK, we cooked the pork, then cooked...24 pans of beans!!!! I have 2 CVAP warmers and 6 Cambro's. Every space full, crammed full, with one to spare!
Tell me there isn't a God who looks after us!!! #TheBishopIsGrateful
I'll post on the assembly event next...Attached FilesLast edited by PaulstheRibList; August 19, 2017, 11:05 PM.Comment
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You da man 😎Comment
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Maybe you were asking, "Paul, what about all that chicken? 1,100 drumsticks is a lot, isn't it?"
Yes sir, it is a lot! The big fridge was nearly full, with 11 cases of chicken. I didn't take a pic until now, and there are 4 cases in the bottom two racks. We rubbed them with Cherry from Simply Marvelous, put them back into the cases and into the fridge until ready for the smoker.
Round 1 of chicken started about 1 am, Friday Morning. It took a little doing, 30-40 minutes I think, to load up about 500 drumsticks on the ole' Mixon 72xc.
If you push it, the fire licks through and burns some of the lower pieces. So I let it ease in there about 225-250. It took a pretty good fire to get to there. Here are the chicken legs at 4:30, when I pulled round one! As soon as those were pulled, I moved the trailer to the customer's sight, and got round 2 of chicken on the pit.
Oh, did I mention that I slipped climbing into the trailer about 11 pm, and hurt my knee? Yep. Good thing for adreneline. It really didn't slow me down until after the sun came up, and by then more help had arrived on the scene. Right after we finished the gig, I could barely walk, and barely stay awake!
#OneofTheseThingsIsNotLikeTheOther
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Next time I need some help managing 4 pork butts and 6 slabs of ribs, I'm just gonna give PaulstheRibList a call.Comment
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Well, here's the wrap up portion of #theBigCook: Assembly Time!
So, to catch you up, it's Friday morning, early, say 3 am. 1st round of chicken in the cooker, about to be pulled in an hour. I'm by myself and getting the final stages ready.
The goal: 1,000 plates in clamshells, with two meats and two sides, assembled in less than 45 minutes, most of those in the last 30 minutes, stored in 20x20x20 boxes, tapped shut to seal in all heat possible, all ready by 11:15 am.
In case you were counting, that's 22 completed boxes a minute. If you
The Method:
1. Have my big trailer, on the customer's site by 5 am Friday, with the 1st round of chicken complete and the 2nd round of chicken on the back deck ready to be put on the smoker. I had my tool trailer unloaded of it's regular cargo and all that barbecue gear as well as the 2nd CVAP, 1,100 buns from the bread guy, lots of tables and all those stuffed full cambro's in there as Thursday continued on. My brother would pull it over about 8 am Friday Morning.
2. Pull the 2nd round of chicken and put the beans back on, to get them back to piping hot. They were in the Cambro's and held temp great. They were at 140 when I put them back on the smoker to up the temperature about 8 am.
2.a. Complication. In the overnight chicken cook, I didn't pull the racks all the way out and check the back thoroughly enough. It was dark, I was tired. About 100 legs were burnt and not servable. Hmmm...I'll try to add more than 500 on round 2, and will change the fire a bit and check the back earlier so none are wasted on round 2...could be short on chicken. (FURTHER COMPLICATION: I don't know exactly how many legs are in each case. I counted 2 cases, one was right at 100, the other was 93. So, I went and bought another 100 legs on Thursday after we counted these two cases. If these 2 cases we counted are representative, I should have 50 pieces extra to help with any potential burns...turns out I will need all of them and more.)
3. Get a small crew there and start pulling the 90+ pork butts before 8 am. We had Pitmaster Sam, Mr. Ronnie, a retired age cool guy who has started working at my other business lately, and an 18 year old son of a family friend who just graduated and is waiting to go into the Marine Corp, #SemperFi. Sam and I instruct them on the ways of butt pulling...and they all get going. On our test of 100 butts a few weeks ago, we picked a sauce for this cook. Pulled pork saucing is our least dialed in meat. We like several things, and just haven't done the work of side-by-side to pick. We picked, measured, and put 3 cups of sauce (1 vinegar based, 2 red) in each pan, with 3 butts in a pan. Pull to chunks, not mush.
4. We did a test assembly a few weeks ago, with about 10 people, building 100 sandwiches, and timed our efforts. We learned we needed more hands on the sandwich assembly, and that the 5" bun was too large for the 12 inch foil wrappers and didn't fit into the clamshell well. We learned and I figured I needed 24 people to staff 2 complete tables, plus 2-3 runners to bring in new pans of beans and pulled pork. I had been recruiting from friends, kids in college, and employees at my other business and their friends. $50 for 1.5 hours or so of work. I wanted the pay to be plenty attractive to reduce the risk of no-shows. My wife and one of my kids were out of town, but my other 3 daughers were there. I ende up with 26 confirmed, and l showed. Praise the Maker!
4a. Complication. Thursday, mid-day, the bread guy calls, says the bakery quit making 4.5" buns...and he has plenty of 5". We visit, and he then starts looking other places for 4.5 inch seeded buns. Finds 4.5", but without seeds. Good enough.
5. Butts were pulled, sauced and repanned, back in the CVAP. We turned up the heat on the CVAP's earlier in the morning to keep that HOT so the temp's for the finished and boxed sandwiches would hold until they reached the mouths of the eaters!
6. Start assigning roles to all the folks and staging the bread, boxes, cambro's, and final cardboard boxes for assembly!
7. Did I mention that I've never done this before? Can you spell #Pressure
8. 10:30, Start. Let crew build the first 100 as a "test" to get their rhythm. That's what I told them, anyway, to let the pressure roll off and learn their best practices for the first few minutes.
9. Take a pic and record a little video with the client as the crew starts building. Here is the video, https://youtu.be/yXMZ8lSkA4k
10. Stop. Take a very quick assessment of what we learned, move a couple of people around, then...
I put the phone/camera away and GET IN THERE AND BUILD SANDWICHES AND BOXES - HUSTLE!!!! We were putting our GENEROUS 6-7 ounce of pulled pork on each bun. We want the to be impressive!
11. Hustle! Everyone learned as we went. And we got faster. The two tables talked a little smack back and forth as we jockeyed to see who was faster. We learned, for example, to put the top bun upside down on the center of the foil, the meat scouper would put the healthy helping of pork on it, one of the two folders would grab the foil, fold it around, and fling/slide the finished, upside down sandwich down a few feet to the lady sitting next to the chicken cambro, who would put the bun and chicken in a clamshell. That's the part I saw, as I was one of the folders.
We got the last 900 plates assembled in just over 30 minutes. Something like 28 boxes a minutes, or 14 a minute per table. One finished plated every 4.2 seconds from each assembly line.
That's finished and boxed barbecue plate, those finished clamshells stacked neatly in 36 cardboard boxes, each holding 28 plates.
Done.
Here we are, in the first 100 sandwiches...the "test phase" for all the learn what they are doing. 8 of these folks were there for practice day. The others are all doing this for the 1st time.
And here we are, AFTER! We had LOTS of pulled pork left, so we made 100 extra sandwiches for us all to take and share.
Here is the client and I taking a congratulatory selfie! Yeah, we did it!!
And right as we were about to leave, Sam, my right-hand man, and I are taking a pic, standing over a field of victory!!!!
It was right about then, when we finished and were wrapping up, that I realized my knee was really hurt. When the adreneline left, I could barely walk. I almost fell asleep on the 15 minute drive home with the rig! Next time: Have someone in the cab with me! (I had been up for about 32 hours straight, and only got 5 hours of sleep or less the prior 2 nights, and some of that not so restful as I thought through the details of pulling off this gig!)
Here's the knee as I got home and iced it.
Then comes Monday morning, where the customer sends me this:
#WorkHard
#GetWisdom (AmazingRibs.com and ThePit are good wisdom for learning barbecue!!)
#HaveFun
#DreamBig
#MakeFriends
#BringThemOnYourBBQAdventures
#DoItEvenBiggerNextRound
#GetOntheRibListComment
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