Question on reheating a lot of pulled pork

[sthomasaz]

I have my wedding reception next month. We are serving pulled pork sandwiches. I have smoked 15 butts. Each were pulled and vacuum sealed individually and frozen. I need to reheat those 15 packages.

Was wondering what best way to do that is. A few roaster ovens? Do I need to add any liquid to the roasters to keep the meat from drying out?

I also had a thought of using a big cooler and using a couple of sous vide machines to warm them up and keep them warm and the wedding coordinator could just pull out and open as needed into a chafing tray or a roaster oven.

Any guidance or tips would be appreciated.

Sean

[Donw]

In my experience either sous vide or boiling will handle large volumes easily. Sous vide has the advantage of maintaining a set temperature. Once I open a bag and dump it into the hotel pan I give it a light dressing with a sauce, in my case Tennessee Red, or butter to add back a moisture mouth feel.

[CHNeal]

I reheated 80 lbs for a wedding reception I catered in covered foil full pans. The only liquid added was that saved from the cook and sauce to the sauced pans.
Heated in the oven at 150. Then kept in steam table. Was excellent.

[Santamarina]

100% go with sous vide and open bags as needed! The meat will be as fresh and moist as possible, and you will have less waste.

[HawkerXP]

I like your sous vide idea. Warm up. Keep warm. Add to full sheet pans with added sauce over a burner as needed.

[jfmorris]

I was GOING to be doing this to serve pulled pork and pulled chicken at my youngest daughter's wedding, for 200 guests, but the big wedding in May 2020 turned into a 15 person backyard reception due to some bug that was going around at the time.

My plan at the time was bouncing between using two Anova's to reheat, or using the steam table tray warming oven they had onsite in the kitchen at the venue. I even thought of buying a Camp Chef Smokevault 24 to help with the smoking, and to act as a warming oven (it will hold 4 steam table trays).

If I were doing it from frozen, I think I would go the sous vide route for the reheat, and then have the servers dump those bags into steam table trays to carry out to the buffet line. You don't want them doing that out in front of folks, but back in a kitchen somewhere I think.

I've got my own chafing dish setups for 7 full trays, and often use them for parties with the stereo cans. I put water in the bottom of a 4" deep large foil pan, then drop two of the 2.5 inch deep half size foil pans from Sam's Club full of pulled pork or other meat into those (they fit sideways like shown in post #5 above).

[smokenoob]

15 butts is a LOT! a few Sous Vide may not be up to the task. I would get one of those cajun dual burners and a few big crab/lobster pots. Bring to a boil then let simmer, don’t over boil!
Sounds great, good luck!

[bbqLuv]

Heat your hot tub up to 145*f and toss them into the hot water for a few hours--sous vide style.

Sounds like fun.

[RustyHaines]

For my son's reception I filled large foil pans with pulled pork, covered with heavy duty foil and froze them. Day of event it went from freezer to a slow thaw to the steamer table. Worked great and everyone was happy. Sauces were all available on the side. I was pleased with how many folks ate the pulled pork without sauce or buns.

Hoping for a great time for you.

[fzxdoc]

They'd be easier to warm up with sous vide or steam pan method if they were all thawed in their bags in the refrigerator first. Not as large a delta to overcome.

Kathryn