First Catering Gig

[PBCDad]

I wasn't sure which forum this fit under, but there will be a lot of brisket so I figured I'd put it here.

Second disclaimer, it's not technically a "gig" since I'm not being paid directly, and I'm going to get lots of help from my cousin who is a chef.

Ever since I got my Jambo cooking, I've been smoking a lot of meat at one time. It only makes sense, if I'm firing it up, I may as well invite the neighbors to pitch in and get some top-quality smoked meat out of it as it doesn't use any more wood and it doesn't take too much more time to prep the meat. The biggest demand is fridge space, and because of that I haven't been dry brining (it still turns out okay ).

With how good everything's been coming off, I've been pegged to cook for the auction my wife and I are putting on for the charity we started this Friday. We're expecting between 100 and 150 people, and we are going to have a street taco bar with chopped brisket, pulled pork, and roasted squash as options. To that end I've gotten 6 pork shoulders, about 40 lbs total, and I'm picking up 3 or 4 whole packer briskets tonight at Costco.

We are going to start setting up at 2:30 and the auction starts at 6:30pm. I don't want to get up at 2am to smoke the meat and have to deal with watching temps all day while we're running around getting everything ready. Besides, while my Jambo is pretty big, I don't know that it could fit 6 butts and 4 briskets all at the same time. So my plan is to smoke on Thursday, 6 hours each for the pork and brisket, wrap them, throw them in the fridge, and finish cooking them in the oven on Friday with much less tending. I'll probably give the briskets to my mom to heat up in her oven, and we'll just faux-cambro them to get to the site. I've been doing it this way for the past couple cooks, and it is tough to tell the difference. While they are smoking on Thursday we'll prepare the salsa and toppings.

If anyone sees something that looks off or has a suggestion to lessen the workload, let me know. I know I could do the pork in the Jambo and the brisket in the PBC and smoke them all the way Thursday, but since we have to reheat on Friday anyway, I figured the Jambo for both is the way to go.

I don't have pics yet, but below are some pics from the last time I fired up the smoker. 3 packers plus one flat, plus the flat sliced up. The flat wasn't super juicy, but everyone was talking about how incredible the taste was . My trimming skills are...getting better. The fire pic here is pretty low, usually there were more coals going. I haven't gotten any smoke flavor off the peach wood I had picked up, so for the auction I'm switching back to cherry.

[ComfortablyNumb]

Best wishes for success!

[DeusDingo]

i don't have any experience cooking up big orders so the best i can do is say "good luck" and mean it

[Troutman]

Nice work from what I can see and best of luck !!!

[jfmorris]

PBCDad I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I did exactly what you are talking about when smoking turkeys for Thanksgiving a few years back. I had two 24 pound birds to smoke on the offset, knew it took 5-6 hours normally, and figured I would smoke them for half the time on Wednesday evening, put them in the fridge, then take them out and do them the rest of the way on Thanksgiving day.

We ate HOURS late, and my wife and all her family were hungry and not happy with me that day.

Basically, if you take the meat halfway to done, then cool it back down to the mid 30's in your fridge, and then put it back on the smoker again, it takes the FULL cooking time you would have had to spend if cooking from start to finish. Not half. The meat will take the same time to reach 203F as if you never cooked it in the first place, if you are starting at fridge temps for the meat when you put it on the smoker. I.e. 40->203 takes a certain amount of time at a given smoker temp. That does not change if the meat was partially cooked previously.

[holehogg]

Good advice as usual. That's why this site is worth every cent, the cumulative knowledge that is shared is priceless.Thank you.

[jfmorris]

holehogg - Thanks! I sure don’t want anyone repeating my mistakes!

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

I agree with your reasoning, to a point, but sounds like he is going to be doing them in the oven (how big is your oven, dude???) and wrapped, might be higher temps. I would imagine they will go a bit quicker that way, though still not "quick". He said he has done this before, so I assume he's taking that into account?

[jfmorris]

I am re-reaading things, and I guess if you are just smoking to get "smoke flavor" on the meat for 6 hours, then sticking in the fridge, and know it will take all day in the oven to cook to 203, that works. I thought maybe you were planning to shorten the cook time on the day of the event.

[PBCDad]

jfmorris thanks for the comments. I think the big difference is that these are going in the fridge, and then in the oven, tightly wrapped in foil. I'll probably set the oven to around 300*. What I've found the past couple times doing this is that a single brisket will heat up to around 200* from fridge temp in around 2 hours. I'm planning on leaving 6 hours in the oven because of the large mass of meat, figuring I can always turn the oven down to 170* once they reach temp. But you are right, I don't want to try to re-smoke it in just a few hours.

[jfmorris]

Glad you've done this before! Getting to 200 and then dropping the oven to 170 is a good plan. If some of the briskets or butts are not to 203F or whatever yet, just drop the oven temp from 300 to something lower until they all come to temp. I imagine if you put your Smoke/Fireboard/whatever probe in the largest butt and largest brisket, you will be good.

[DWCowles]

I just love pics of true stickburners! Best of luck o
n your success.

[Jerod Broussard]

I agree, briskets do well being refrigerated and reheated. I've got two to cook for Easter and I'm definitely doing them a couple days ahead, chilling, and poppin' in the oven Easter morning. I cooked for 350-ish in the Pit Barrel a Wednesday thru Friday to be served on Saturday.

[Danjohnston949]

PBCDad, Congratulations❗️ Now the Fun Begins‼️ Another Full Fledged Restaurant'nere Is Hatched‼️ May the Smoke God's Look in Favor on You and Your Endeavors❗️ 🤗 😇 🤗
Eat Well and Prosper❗️ From a Backyard Cremator in Fargo ND, Dan

[rack_slabbath]

I'm doing my first "gig" on Wrestlemania night....for *drumroll*....15 people! Best of luck to you PBCDad!

[Frozen Smoke]

I've done a good number of events. Weddings, grads etc. I have something every weekend coming up this June. I think the most I cooked for was nearly 300. Anyway I try to cook most things on site whenever possible. Pulled pork I always do ahead of time because it does freeze and reheats so well. I try to keep 30lbs of pulled pork vac sealed in the freezer most of the time. I just pull it out and thaw when I know I'm going to need it.

Ribs which I get asked to do more often than not are always done on site. Briskets I have done the day before but I always cook them through and reheat covered on the smoker and slice and served on site.
Chicken or turkey done on site. Sides are usually provided by others but I often times am asked to do pit beans which are done in advance as well.

Sounds like you have a method that works so stick with it. These events are a lot more work than people appreciate as you are going to find out. Always hundreds of things to do.

[Danjohnston949]

Frozen Smoke, If You Are Ever Scheduled to Do a Cook on the Western Side of MN, East Grand Forks, Thief River Falls, or ❓ ❓ ❓❗️
Please Post It With a Little Lead Time❗️ It Would Be Good to Meet You❗️
Also To Sample Your Wares‼️
From a Backyard Cremator in Fargo ND, Dan

[Frozen Smoke]

I will do that Danjohnston949 but most cooks I do are pretty local to me. However I'm supposed to do some fund raising cooks with OBR this summer around the state I will keep you posted.

[PaulstheRibList]

Cooking big is so fun!!!

[Danjohnston949]

PaulstheRibList, Paul Your Posts are Getting Shorter All the Time❓
I Bet It Has Something To Do With the BBQ Bus. Being So Good the "BISHOP of BBQ" Doesn't Have Time to Say Grace❓❓ 🤗😇🤗
From a Backyard Cremator in Fargo ND, Dan

[PaulstheRibList]

You have diagnosed correctly Danjohnston949!

80 hours of work last week. We served about 600 plates in several gigs

[PBCDad]

Alright, I've had a week to recover so I can finally reflect back safely

First of all, it was so much work. Smoking the meat was the easy part, I know how to do that pretty well and I just kept throwing splits on the fire. I did have the fire go out once when I forgot to set the low temp alarm on my Maverick and I got caught up in something else, but it was fairly easy to restart and no harm done. And for some reason I always struggle getting the initial fire lit, but I prepared for the cook much better this time so I had everything cleaned out already and plenty of kindling. I ended up smoking 6 pork butts and 3 full packer briskets, in total around 85-90 pounds of raw meat before trimming.

I stuck with my plan of smoking on Thursday and wrapping and into the oven on Friday. I gave the brisket to my mom to reheat since I didn't have enough oven space for it all at once. I have mentioned that I've now used this method a few times, and the meat has generally been ready in less than 2 hours at 300*. Well, this was a lot more meat than I normally reheat, so even though I gave it 4 hours before we had to leave, neither of the types of meats reached 200*. I had to leave, and they were all close, so I figured I would let the faux cambro do its magic.

Both meats turned out really well. We pulled the pork and chopped the brisket for tacos, and it all turned out plenty tender and great flavor. Everybody loved it. We also served roasted butternut squash and that was gone within a few minutes. In the end we had 2 pork butts and maybe 1/3 of a brisket left over, not bad for 120 or so people! Plus, the barbecue dinner for 20 people that I offered for the auction went for $600!

What I won't get into too much is why I said it was so much work. Briefly, we made a ton of beans, home made tomatillo salsa, and a few other things I can't even remember. But the real work was in all the auction stuff. The auction was the first one we've done for the charity my wife and I started, and it was basically us two organizing and putting on everything. So I was in charge of the database, registration, credit card processing, playing piano for the live music, helping set everything up, announcements, and odd tasks that came up.

Anyway, here's what you came to see: