Advice for Upcoming Cook(s). . .


 
B

Brian Johnson

TVWBB Pro
I've got an annual event coming up for which I have been providing bbq for the last couple of years. So far I've done (poorly executed) pulled pork, spare ribs (SLC), bbq beans, and hot dogs for the kids. I'd thought about doing a brisket this year but a good number of the guests don't eat beef and that's a big expensive cut of meat to "waste" on people that won't enjoy it.

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to cook, but my last idea was to do pulled pork and pulled/shredded beef (inspired by this recipe) and to have buns and tortillas available on the buffet. The problem with this idea is that I smoke the beef and pork with completely different woods. I figure I have a couple of options:
1) Smoke one meat in the WSM and the other in the OTG
2) Smoke both meats separately in the WSM (i.e. pork on Saturday, beef on Sunday), store each and reheat for the party

The other choice, is to do a marathon cook with time between meats to add more fuel (if needed) and "swap out" the smoke wood.

The party starts at like 11 am and I'm kind of one of the hosts so I probably shouldn't be so exhausted from cooking that I can't socialize. This is why I'm leaning away from the marathon cook, but I haven't completely ruled it out.

Any ideas?
 
Personally, I would start early Sat morning with one meat (beef may take shortest time at 5--6 hr based on Chris' recipe), then re-load with fuel/diff wood for the second meat. If you get the fire started at 5 am/meat in at 6 a.m. meat out at say noon and reloaded by 1, you might be all done by evening before it gets too dark.

You need to get that second batch cooled down for it's night's rest so keep that in mind too. Failing that, a Friday cook/cool and a Saturday cook/cool might be a better idea.

Either way, that meat needs to be cooled down to avoid the nasties IMO. I've never tried that much/different meats for one sitting though so these comments may be so much bull poop.
 
If a good number of the guests don't do beef than I would suggest pulled chicken along with the pulled pork. You can add some BBQ sloppy joes for the moo eaters, and kids love em.

Tim
 
Do you really have to use two different types of wood to smoke the beef & pork?
Maybe there is a wood that works well for both types of meat? Maybe a combination of several types of wood.
If so, you could cook the beef & pork at the same time & save yourself a lot of extra work.
 
Just a thought, when I cook beef and pork, I normally do two pork butts on the middle rack and brisket on the top rack. By using a dual temp thermometer I know when to pull each meat and I only have to cook once. I normally use apple for both meats so a single cook is my go to for a large group. Call me lazy, but it works and everyone loves the results. Good luck.
 
I would recommend passing on the beef and cooking chicken to go along with the pork butts. BBQ chicken is a crowd pleaser, whether pulled or sliced. Chicken can be done on the kettle and the butts on the wsm.

Good luck.
 
Brian, here's a cook I did last year for a birthday party to give you some ideas. http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?54502-Pulled-pork-overnighter-tonight

I smoked overnight and FTW for transport to the party. It was FTW for 5 hours or so. Can't remember. The cold sides were made the day before. Grilled stuff like hotdogs and the ABTs were done during the party. Of course I started the ABTs on the grill about 1 before guests started to arrive and they were ready about half an hour later.

Good luck.:wsm:
 
One of my favorite things to cook for a crowd is smoked Mac & Cheese. No boxed stuff...fresh noodles, home made white sauce (rue?) and no less than 4 fresh ground cheeses. go light on the smoke, but cook it real good. People will be bowing down to you

It's my goto when I want attaboys
 
I would go with one wood (probably apple), for both the pulled pork and the beef. The easiest would be the pulled pork and the chicken.
I have frequently done Pulled Pork and Brisket together and had excellent results.

Chuck, I make a mean Mac and Cheese, never thought about smoking it. Gonna next time for sure (light on the smoke).
This is why I love you guys! Great ideas everywhere!
 
Matt Rector said:
Chuck, I make a mean Mac and Cheese, never thought about smoking it. Gonna next time for sure (light on the smoke).
Click to expand...

Mac & Cheese soaks up smoke like a sponge. I usually make it on the stove (using Alton Brown's recipe) and then transfer to a shallow foil pan. All it takes is about a half hour to get a nice hint of smoke. Much longer than that, it'll start drying out and taste more like an ashtray.
 
If you want to mostly enjoy the party instead of manning the grill invoke the KISS principle.
It's still a lot of work but you do it ahead of time and the food holds very well for several hours in a cooler.

First figure out what went wrong with the pulled pork last time and fix it so instead of being (poorly executed) it's awesome.
Much better to have one great entree than three ho humm items.
Time the pork so it comes out of the cooker ~5 hours before serving time.
That will give plenty of time for rest/pull/hold.
Instead of ribs or chicken serve smoked sausage. It's foolproof, fast, holds well in the cooler, and it's delicious. I use Hilshire Farm skinless sausage.
After the pork butts come out of the cooker mass cook all the sausages and the hotdogs in the smoker, if you are cooking under 300 you don't have to worry about them at all. Smoke them for ~2-3 hours. They go directly from the cooker to the serving tray to the cooler and will hold just fine for several hours.

For side dishes I recommend these two...

This size recipe fits nicely in a 1/2 size foil serving tray
55 oz Bush's original baked beans (any pork & beans works)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup KC Masterpiece Original BBQ sauce
1/2 cup catsup
1/4 cup mustard
3 or 4 slices fried bacon with drippings (crumbled)
1/2 onion ( or thereabouts ) chopped fairly small
1/2 bell pepper chopped small ( if it's a big bell pepper use less than 1/2 )
Use the foil tray and fry bacon in oven (start with cold oven, set oven to 400 deg cook until browned ~20 minutes).
Remove bacon from tray and let cool.
Reuse tray with the bacon drippings to cook the beans in.
If you don't want to eat the extra fat drain it out but leave the browned bacon residue in the pan.
Add beans, add rest of ingredients, stir together gently until well mixed.
Cook uncovered at 350 ~2-3 hours.
The goal is to get it bubbling throughout to cook the onion and bell pepper and to reduce the liquid a bit so when the beans are served they are not runny.


Simple potatoes.
Again fits nicely in 1/2 size foil serving tray.
5 lbs potatoes
1/2 stick butter
1/2 chopped onion
1/2 chopped bell pepper (if it's a big pepper use less)
1/3 cup water
Salt & pepper
Peel potatoes and slice in (little finger thickness) disks.
Add water
Add layer of potatoes
Add some onion and bell pepper
Salt/pepper lightly
Repeat until all potatoes/onion/bell pepper are added
Distribute pats of butter across top of potatoes.
Cover with foil
Cook covered at 350 until fork tender ~2-3 hours.
 
Post Cook Update

Well, the cook is all said and done. Thanks to you all for the advice and words of wisdom. As it turns out there were enough requests for my ribs I just decided that was the way to go. So I bought 6 racks of St. Louis cut ribs from Costco and coiled them up on my 18.5" WSM. I didn't get any pictures (which is why I'm just detailing the cook here instead of in a separate post) because I was too busy and too tired.

Because it was our party, despite it being hosted at a friend's house, our refrigerator was too full for me to prep the ribs and refrigerate them until it was time for them to go on the WSM. So 2:00am my alarm clock goes off and I'm hit the kitchen. I did get the WSM set up (loaded w/fuel and waiting to be lit) and my rub made before going to bed Friday night, so that saved some time. After waking up a bit, I went ahead and lit my coals and headed inside to start prepping ribs. I'm a little disappointing that a) I didn't get any pictures and b) I had to coil the ribs to get them all to fit because I spent a good bit of time pulling membranes and trimming excess fat and removing tip meat that the (assembly-line mass) meat packer missed. By the time I was done with all 6 racks, it was 4:30am before they went on the smoker. I did wait for an additional 15 minutes after they were prepped because I didn't want them coming off of the smoker too early.

Skip ahead a few hours (and even fewer hours of sleep), and I was outside pulling the ribs off the WSM, slicing them into 2-3 bone servings and packing them into foil pans for transport to the party site. I managed to make a bbq sauce while they were cooking too. Once I got to the party site I popped the ribs in a warmed oven to hold them until the very last minute.

The party was a hit. Everyone loved the ribs. I only brought 4 -6 individual ribs home, but that was because one of the guests left them at the party and I promised to make sure they got them.

Next year is definitely going to be another pulled pork year. I can usually get a full night's sleep when I do pulled pork, and sleep is a good thing.
 
I see that its too late now, but if you do pork & beef and want to use different woods, why not start w/ the pork and let it cook for 4-ish hours and then wrap it before putting the beef and new wood on the fire?

Congrats on the ribs by the way.
 
Wayne Ficklin said:
I see that its too late now, but if you do pork & beef and want to use different woods, why not start w/ the pork and let it cook for 4-ish hours and then wrap it before putting the beef and new wood on the fire?

Congrats on the ribs by the way.
Click to expand...

I don't typically wrap my pork shoulders during my cooks, but that is a good idea that I may have to try. Thanks!
 
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