BBQ for a crowd

[CandySueQ]

This is the weekend to cook briskets and butts! I'm feeding a crowd next Friday night down in Louisiana. Right now the head count of partakers is 68 +8 maybes. I'm thinking cook for 75. Another site says cook 1/3 pound per person (25 pounds total) plus 10%. That's a couple of pounds shy of 30 pounds. I'm wondering what a full size pan of pulled pork and mixed cuts brisket weighs! I expect I'd be too lucky if each pan weighs 10 pounds! I've got 3 briskets, full packer, untrimmed over 12 pounds each, so likely around 30 pounds raw after trim. I need to buy pork butts, so I'm going to look for Tyson boneless at Walmart and get about 30 pounds raw.

Pulled chicken will be boneless skinless thighs cooked with this method:

Pulled Chicken for a crowd

This morning I visited with a cooking friend about chicken. He gave me some great tips that I'll share. Next month, I'm doing an event for about 50+ people. The plan is to do full-size pans of pulled beef, pork and chicken for sandwiches. Pork and beef are easy and they will reheat well. Chicken, not so much, it's best cooked fresh! I'm going to fill 2 full-size pans with boneless, skinless thighs, this should yield one pan of pulled chicken. Season the thighs and put pats of butter on the top (that's the braise). Cook uncovered for one hour then cover the pan with foil and continue cooking another hour. After this, drain the juices from the cooking pans, then pull the thighs apart. I will sauce the pulled chicken and toast the sauced pulled lightly to toughen up the pulled.

I'm going to bring sauce, one quart each of Original Head Country, some Blues Hog-ish sweet sauce and a hot and spicy sauce. Others are providing buns. I'm thinking I should make my favorite KFC cole slaw clone, just because that's what I like on a pulled pork sammie.

Any and all tips are welcome! I haven't decided how I'm cooking all of this meat -- pull the MAK out of the garage for briskets, cook butts on OG or cook all of it at one time on the offset (and use all my wood) or the Woodmaster minihog (pellets).

[Huskee]

I have been wondering about the best way to do pulled chicken and have it come out top notch. I will be watching this space and eagerly awaiting your results and tips! I have a wedding reception coming up late summer in which I've been asked to do pulled pork and pulled chicken for 100-200 people. The pork, like you say, is dead simple. I'd actually considered doing a mix of breast and blsl thighs in the Instant Pot and smoking shallow pans of it later to give it smoke but I'm not convinced that's the best way. I've done that with pork.

[Richard Chrz]

In a comp a few years ago, we did half chickens and left the skin on, a bit of a front sear first, then smoke. We pulled the skin off and the pulled the chicken and it was excellent.

[jfmorris]

When I was supposed to do pulled pork and pulled chicken for my daughter's May 2020 wedding for 200, which got canceled, I planned to do boneless skinless thighs as well. They were cheap and much less work than trying to smoke whole chickens and then pull all the meat off the carcasses. Of course, that wedding got scaled down to a 15 person wedding reception in the backyard due to unforeseen circumstances.

Fast forward to last week. I was at Sam's Club. A pack of boneless skinless chicken thighs was $17! A pack of bone-in thighs was $7. I went bone-in due to the cost difference, and they were just for weekday meals for the 2 of us, along with a meal for my daughters family. Literally, boneless skinless thighs were 3x the cost per pound of bone-in thighs. I was shocked. In fact, fresh boneless skinless thighs were $1 more per pound than boneless skinless breasts! It was a complete reversal of anything I had seen in chicken pricing.

Today at Sam's the CASE price for boneless skinless breasts is $2.55/lb. Case price for boneless skinless thighs is $3.31/lb, and they are not showing me individual flat/package pricing, likely as they have none out on the floor.

At those prices, I would likely be doing pulled chicken using whole chickens, even though it is certainly more work.

[Huskee]

Yeah blsl thighs used to be $.99 (frozen) to 1.99 /lb where I shop. Now they're like $3.49/lb, crazy jump, as bad as eggs.

[jfmorris]

Huskee yeah, I used to buy them a lot, but had not in a while. I am still in shock from the price jump on them.

I'm gonna be doing a lot of drumsticks and bone-in thighs this summer for my grilling I imagine. I really like the boneless thighs for stir fry and such on the griddle, but not as often at those prices. Of course, its still 1/3 the price of flank steak or other beef I would use on the flat top.

[CandySueQ]

I'm pretty good at getting that bone out of a chicken thigh! Got a Dalstrong paring knife being delivered today too. jfmorris I think the method above would work for BS breasts too, but you'd have to pay close attention to meat temp not to over cook.

[PipsBBQ]

I'm no expert, But my 2 best pulled chicken cooks (Both whole and Boneless) were Brined overnight. It makes such a difference in tenderness and the cook.

[JoeSousa]

Seems like that much brisket and pork butt will be enough. I did a dinner for 70 last year and I cooked 3 briskets and 4 pork butts. IIRC there was a bit of pork left but all the briskets were gone. If I had room for a 4th brisket on my smoker I could have probably done one more but if you are going to have chicken and do the pork as sandwiches I would think you will have enough meat.

I also had baked beans, potato salad, and coleslaw (2 pans each) for sides. Plenty of those left.

[CandySueQ]

I think I'll cut back to 2 butts. I know beef and chicken will be the first to go. Thanks!

[PNWsmoke]

I did 4 pork butts 40 lbs last weekend and after pulling and discarding fat had about 25 lbs.
Weighed and vacuum sealed.

[CandySueQ]

Good yield info! Thanks

[BKYDBBQ]

When I fix pork butts I am buying smithfield or swift bone-in butts. I have weighed many of them over the years before and after cooking and I usually figure roughly a 50% loss maybe closer to 45%, so 40 lbs raw will yield about 20 - 23 lbs finished product. I wouldn't assume that a full pan holds a specific weight, I use half pans and when filled they can weigh from 4 - 6 pounds.

I have not done much with brisket so I can not speak for the weight loss.

Whole chickens pulled I usually figured close to 50% if not slightly more loss between raw and the finished product.

I often work with people on roughly 1/4 lb of product per serving, i.e. pork sandwich, brisket, etc. But it also depends on the audience, a sports team or something with heavy eaters I would figure on more.

One trick to stretch it is to use slider buns instead of full buns, People will often get a little less on their first time through with sliders. Someone might get two full sandwiches but they are less likely to get 5 or 6 sliders initially.

However, there are a lot of theories on how to figure what to cook so the key is to work with who you are cooking for and determine what configuration you think might work best for the event.

I hope this helps a little bit.

[CandySueQ]

BKYDBBQ, helps lots! I cooked 2 butts, total weight 22 lbs, yield right at 10.5 lbs. 25 lbs of raw brisket ended up right at 11 lbs. That means that chicken will have to pick up the slack! Good tip on the slider buns. Thanks! Chicken yield is 25% for boneless parts -- I hope that's true with the price of boneless bits!

[CandySueQ]

Just an update on how the BBQ for 75 turned out last Friday. Because of the size of my RV frig, half pans were what I used. I also used a pan liner to barrier foil to meat (too many times I've seen seasoning react to foil). I ended up with 9.5 lbs of pulled pork in 2 pans, 10.5 lbs of brisket in 2 pans and 2 full size pans of chicken. Because there was a really great sale on Sanderson Farms chicken breasts, I started with 10 lbs of breasts and 10 lbs of thighs. Each broke down to one full size pan and one half, so 3 full pans of chicken on the smoker. I seasoned them 6 hours before with one of my favorite chicken rubs, Yardbird. This is plenty salty so I count this as dry brine too. A single layer of meat in each cooking pan, then a generous pat of butter for each piece. Cooker was full with the reheat of pork and brisket, so the cook took a bit longer. Temp ranged from 275 to 300. Took the thighs to 165 and the breasts to 155. Drained the juice, pulled the meat and back on the cooker to finish. The white meat was quite lovely. Plenty of juice and flavor -- served one pan without sauce (as requested). Sorry no pictures!