Day long smoker menu recommendations

[Bendy]

relatively new to real smoking and grilling and am hosting a festival of sorts with the guys only. We are starting early around 9 AM and will be enjoying cigars and whiskey for about 6-8 hours while the ladies are out. I would like to use the smoker (24" Smoke Vault) get to one temp and then have several items in at once that will be ready at different times throughout the day. Looking for straight forward since the whiskey will be flowing liberally. No meat or food restrictions. Looking for anything from snacks to wings, beef etc. just do not trust myself to select and time everything appropriately. Help me friends, by spending my money. Thanks

[Steve B]

Bendy I'd love to help you here but once you said "the whiskey will be flowing liberally" I would have a hard time doing that myself. Cause you know you're gonna forget something.

[cwain8845]

Bendy I would decide on a main dish that you can eat by the days end and work your way down from there. You can throw on a pork butt, ribs, beer can chicken or something at the beginning. While that is going you can throw on some duck or deer bombs (jalepeno stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon and then wrapped with deer or duck). If you don't have duck or deer you can use a cheap
cut of beef and wrap the jalepenos. You can also do armadillo eggs which is the same thing except use breakfast sausage to mold around the jalepeno.

Once those are off the smoker and devoured you can either throw some wings or homemade sausage on the smoker if you have those choices.

All that I mentioned are no more than a 1 1/2-2 hour smoke. So y'all can munch on the small stuff while sipping and relaxing until the pork butt or whatever you decide to put on for the main dish is done.

[Steve R.]

Butts and ribs are pretty straight forward. Man, that's a lot of hours to be drinking whiskey! Consider that beer and smokers are a match made in heaven.

[Spinaker]

As Jess Pryles says, "Meat & Fire & Whiskey & Repeat" That being said......

Wings are always a great way to go. But cook them HOT. Like 375 to 425 F. They will be done in about 30 mins. Prep them the night before so the whiskey won't get in the way.

I use Meatheads Simon and Garfunkel rub. You cant go wrong. When paired with smoke it's divine. (Link below)

http://amazingribs.com/recipes/rubs_pastes_marinades_and_brines/simon_and_garfunkel_rub.html

Let the wings dry on a wire rack, uncovered in the fridge, overnight. (After washing and drying) Then take the wings out of the fridge. And cover with the Simon and Garfunkel rub paste. (The link will explain this) Let it sit for about an hour or three until the fire is ready. Right before putting them in the smoker, spray with some kind of high temp oil. (Avocado or Grape seed oils are staples) This will make the skin bite through and almost fried. Put the whole rack in the smoker. Its the easiest and fastest way to get a bunch of wings in and out of the smoker. Then you can bring them inside and take them off the rack or you can serve it as is on a cutting board. The skin should be bite through. I do this all the time on my KBQ and they are the best wings I've ever put out.

Let us know how it goes. And we wanna see pictures of the antics!!!

[EdF]

I'd prep everything possible the night before the festivities commence. So much easier to enjoy the ambience!

[Bendy]

Thanks for the recs, just what I needed, to be pointed in a direction.
The gathering is annual and we have mastered the stogies and sippin, just trying to get the food to the same level. I will post pics in mid May after I clean up!

[Willy]

If the whiskey is flowing freely enough, you could just order pizza... At least no one would get burned.

Spinaker and cwain8845 's thoughts are good ones. Wings and jalapeno poppers--tasty and easy. Maybe even grill some dogs?

[BBQbot]

Here's a recommendation that works if you have a lot of cooking space, because much of it will be taken up by bones -
If you can find them, get a bunch of nice, meaty beef ribs. Beef ribs are ideal for these situations, because they can have multiple done times. Start them at about 250F, until the internal temp is about 165F (should take a few hours), now you can start eating. At 165F, they have a great flavor, they're juicy, tender but have a some chew to them - they're very good.

Lower your internal oven temp to about 220F, and you have hours of ribs, that get progressively more tender throughout the cook, you can take this all the way up to 200F which can be another 3 hours or so.

As the beef ribs come off, and you have room, throw on some tri-tips, and cook to about 135F, this will take less than an hour at those temps.