• Enter the TVWB 27th Anniversary Prize Drawing for a chance to win a Weber Traveler Portable Gas Grill! Click here to enter!

25 In-laws and outlaws


 
J Hasselberger

J Hasselberger

TVWBB All-Star
I'm having 25 family members over on Sunday. I'm calculating that 2 boston butts, 2 briskets, 6 racks of St. Louis ribs and 4 lbs. of kielbasa will do the trick. There will be sides and beer, but barbecue is what everyone is coming for.

I've never done a group this large before. Am I in the ballpark on quantity?

My secondary question is about smoke wood. I usually use hickory, but I just got some apple chunks. Any advice on what wood to use with what meat is appreciated. thanks.
 
Oh yeah that's plenty.

Personally, I like hickory for butt and briskets.

But I would certainly recommend trying the apply with the ribs and sausage.
 
I forgot to mention that the briskets are untrimmed flats, usually about 6lbs. as they go into the cooker. The butts will probably net at 8 lbs. each and the St. Louis ribs are what they are.

I plan to overnight the butts on Thursday nite into Friday afternoon. The briskets will go all day on Saturday and the ribs will go in on Sunday morning.

I've got plenty of Kingsford and wood chunks and plan to have a case of Yeuengling on hand for the chef.

Thanks for the advice on the wood. I'm definitely going to switch to apple for the ribs. Has anyone use apple juice spray on ribs? I usually coil the racks with bamboo skewers and set them on edge. All six fit in the small bullet with plenty of room.

As to the address, we're in South Jersey. Take the Holland Tunnel, go south about 90 miles and make a right. Follow the smell from there.
 
JH.....my long lost family you forgot about me....make that 26 (outlaw side I guess)......Traveling down from Exit 11, what time should I arrive with my appetite?
 
Regarding apple juice spray on the ribs. I've used it, but I like this even better.....equal parts apple juice, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar and mustard mixed together and brushed onto the ribs several times during cooking.

Sounds like a good feast this weekend. Have fun with it!
 
Ethan, what kind of mustard?

Looking forward to the weekend. I think after three days of smoking, I may have to toss my old cooking clothes.
 
Trimmed two pork shoulders yesterday and rubbed them with the Chris Lilly's Championship Pork Rub from the cooking section of the TVWB. I use Wild Willy's Rub from the "Smoke & Spice" book for just about everything else. My butcher "did me a favor" by taking the bones out of the shoulders and tying them up. He had them set aside for me and one got frozen pretty good. It wasn't thawed completely when I was getting ready to put them in the bullet last night, so I whipped up some of Chris Lilly's Injection, heated it up in the microwave and injected it into the still-frozen interior of the shoulder. It actually worked to thaw it out! I wouldn't normally inject so close to take off, but ya gotta do what you gotta do. One shoulder is in there un-injected, so we'll see in the result.

Did a Minion start with a full chamber with 7 apple chunks buried and lit about 25 in a chimney with two hickory chunks. The cooker went from 11:30 last night to 10:30 this morning at about 250° at the lid with no more than about 5 degrees in either direction.

Flipped the shoulders and sprayed them with apple juice at 10:30 this morning. They were both at around 175° internal. BTW, they were 6.4 lbs. and 5.1 lbs. trimmed and with the bone out.

I'll write again when they're done. In the meantime, anyone have any views on pulling them today and refrigerating the bits versus leaving them intact, reheating them on Sunday and pulling them then?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top