Briskets for a BIG party (100+ wedding)


 
First off Rick, good luck to you. Are you able to acquire/rent/borrow another WSM? Can you recruit a few extra hands to assist the monster task and use a neighbor's oven for re-heating?

I've cooked two full (flat/cap) 15-17 lb briskets on the top rack of my 22.5" WSM. One was flat on the rack, the other was laying halfway on the rack and leaning on the other. You should be able to fit three flats without the mod to your WSM. I buy untrimmed briskets then trim myself so there is a good layer of fat to protect it from drying out. I concur with misting apple juice. I cook 8-9 hours in the WSM, pan/wrap to finish in a 300F oven (3-4 hours, int temp 205F) then drain (save the au jus to mix with your sauce) the pan and rest for 1-2 hours in a towel lined cooler. After cooling, I pack and seal in freezer bags. I've never cooked trimmed flats but I would think that slowly reheating in a covered pan to holding temp with au jus and apple juice spritz the morning of serving then holding it in a towel lined cooler is the way to go.

It would seem you need a 2nd and 3rd set of hands to assist and monitor during the ceremony so you can attend to paternal ceremonial duties.

Do you have an electric knife for carving? That and another WSM/UDS and extra hands would be on my list of needs.
 
OT: for those that do the ice bath for a quick chill, one thing I picked up from brewing my beer..... start with just cold water from the tap first to get the major heat off, change it maybe every 5-10 minutes for a few times, then when it's somewhat cooled, then add the ice..... that will save you a lot of ice!
 
You must remember Brisket is a muscle. If you quick chill it with ice, You are going to seize that muscle up and it will stay super tight. Just like going from a hot spa to a cold pool. Gene hit the nail on the head. I do big cater jobs all the time. I pull mine right before she wants to give it up. Then let it sit in foil,open untill it cools down to 160ish. Carve and bag. Like Gene said, Save all your au jus! When you reheat it, Mix it 1/2 with beef broth. Try to re-fire it about an hour before serving in the broth. It will give it proper time to re-hydrate and break the connective tissue down. It might be a little more fall apart then what you are use to( depending on how long it takes a bath for) Most people are use to tough brisket anyway's, But it will have that big beefy taste. Then you will get two too three people asking you to cater for them. Then you charge 25bucks a plate if you half to serve. Or 15 bucks a pound for buffet line :)
 
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M Crooks said:
This is your chance to get a 22 wsm. Take it. Then use both.
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:) Tried that, but the wife shut me down. If I had that I would likely plan to cook from midweek up to Friday morning and refrigerate until Saturday instead of freezing.

The wife is organizing the kitchen, and she have 3-4 volunteers that will be doing the kitchen and buffet line work the day of. We're not suppose to cook at the event place, but it does have a standard size oven/range for some warming chores. So our plan is reheating at home, using the oven and firing up the WSM for oven duty, and then packing the hot dishes in coolers loaded with hot rock salt. There may be some division of the reheating chore to include our volunteers' ovens. When we get to the event the volunteers will take it all from there, including the final slicing.

The volunteers are all moms that had DIY wedding for their kids and walked away feeling they missed a lot of the wedding fun with the work. So they want to free up the wife for her mother-of-the-bride fun. Sisterhood, dudes!
 
lots of people have posted about reheating in the vacuum bags in hot water, if that hasn't been mentioned before.
 
Hey, people, just an update:

The Sams Club case was 72 lbs. I'm on the third day of what looks to be 5 days of smoking. Sams' briskets at my locality are flats, with 10 briskets flats in that 72 lbs pack. With my 18'WSM modified for 3 cooking grates, and loss to trimming and shrinkage almost 50%, I picked up another 35 lbs (5 briskets) to boost the yield for a minimum 50 lbs of cooked meat. Each day was a mad rush to get the briskets prepped, grates cleaned, old ash dumped and a new fire started, so no time for pictures just yet.
 
personally, I would have forsaken charcoal on this endeavor and gone with a gas smoker, specifically the Smoke Hollow 44 conveniently located at SamsClub. You could do 10 brisket flats at a time and then used the thing as an outdoor oven the day of the wedding/reception.


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Upfront cost would have been $280 + tax and a propane tank if you didn't already have one. When finished, you could always sell it to recoup some of the costs.


FTR, I got one of these last year and I absolutely love it. So much so that I picked up a second one this year to use as an outdoor oven for parties at my house. I'll load up one with meat for smoking, use the other for cooking corn, green beans, bakers and whatever other things would normally cook in the oven, and lastly fire up my grills for whatever needs to be grilled.
 
DaveW said:
personally, I would have forsaken charcoal on this endeavor and gone with a gas smoker, specifically the Smoke Hollow 44 conveniently located at SamsClub. You could do 10 brisket flats at a time and then used the thing as an outdoor oven the day of the wedding/reception.


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A little late now, but thanks for the tip. Stuff comes out of the WSM tasting so great I'm guilty of being biased to thinking that's the only way to go. Only two more days and the lil' old 18 WSM will have 15 briskets done.
 
RickRS said:
A little late now, but thanks for the tip. Stuff comes out of the WSM tasting so great I'm guilty of being biased to thinking that's the only way to go. Only two more days and the lil' old 18 WSM will have 15 briskets done.
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It's all good. Different strokes for different folks and all that. For the amount of smoking that I do, I just like the convenience that the SH44 offers.


Looking forward to hearing how well everything goes with the reception.
 
I did a Sam’s club case of butts for my daughters sweet sixteen party, 76# about this time of year in a 18'' wsm and a propane brinkman the day of the party.

I'm not going to lie it was a job, the wind picked up and I had trouble keeping my temps up, I should have got done way early but I pulled them out of the smokers at 5 double wrapped into coolers to the hall, some were not quite ready so we threw those in the oven and started pulling the ones that were.

The party went off without a hitch everybody loved the pork, but it was a hard day. Doing it ahead is a good idea, my neighbor owns a packing plant and they have big freezers, if you have a local one you might be able to talk them into freezing and vacuum packing your meat for you.

Good luck and congratulations, it will turn out fine everybody but you will love it.
 
Sorry, still trying to catch up with all the cleanup of the mess the wedding made. But a update; the wedding dinner was really well received. I think there was about 90-100 of us, and I could have stop with the 72 lbs of uncooked briskets instead of getting the extra 5 flats (~30 lbs more). So less than 1/2 lbs per person. Wife had load up the buffet, so I'm not completely surprised. There was salad, green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, fried rice, egg rolls, dinner rolls, fruits and desserts all on the line before you got to the brisket.

Father of the groom was from Texas and he told me it brisket, brisket everywhere for everything back home, but mine was up there was the best he ever had. High praise, as far as I'm concerned. :) And I keep telling people, it ain't me, you'll got to get a WSM if you want stuff this good too.

It was a balls to the wall, high stress thing doing that big of a event for the wife and her kitchen crew (me, her two girlfriends, and the girlfriend's granddaughter) but at show time it went smooth as silk. I'll post a couple of WSM prep photos when I have the time. Thanks for everyone's suggestions and support here. You people rule!
 
Congrats on the wedding and a job well done! Nothing like a well planned smoke coming together. If you can, tell us about your storing process. Did you store cooked meat in the freezer? Did the briskets meet YOUR expectations? What did you do to warm them up? Again, congratulations!
 
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