Cooking for 50 - how scared I should be?


 
Kristof Jozsa

Kristof Jozsa

TVWBB Fan
So I have my trusty lil 14.5 WSM for 3+ years now and it has over 40 cooks already. I'm very comfortable cooking for 6-8 people and can make a 16h cook with an empty pan and without a hint of stress, rolling amazing food to friends most of the time.

This week I got an interesting request which I could not really turn down: to prepare pulled pork for about 50 people. Naturally, my small cooker would not qualify for the task, but a friend offered me to borrow his 22" WSM. I know his beast by sight but I've never cooked on it.. it's such a scary monster compared to my 14"..

Hence my questions, how different are these two? If I follow my instincts and rely on my experience with the 14", will about the same things happen, or I need to approach the Rocket a bit differently? Eg. I assume I would need at least half a chimney of lump to start the minion method? Also, if I bring this up to 230F and then add like 45lbs of cold meat, wouldn't this thing just die out completely on me? I also have no idea how sensitive the 22" is, whether it tends to overheat or rather cool out in general, etc.. I assume I'd need refueling after about 8 hours with quality lump (my preferred fuel for all cooks).

Luckily, I only need to care about the meat and the smoking, all sides are taking care of by others. What advices would you pass to make this event succeed?
 
For those sorts of gigs I nearly always cook in advance. Size of the cooker doesn't matter if you have adequate lead time. That said, I don't do anything different at the outset when cooking with a larger cooker other than a few more lit if doing a Minion start. It is always easier to get the temp to rise or make the cooker hotter than the reverse. Pull the meat out of the fridge hours ahead of time and it won't act as a heat sink.
 
I can't help you with your WSM questions, but since one of the great things about pulled pork is that it's better after resting overnight I'd cook in advance, pull it, bag it, and then gently reheat it at the event.

How much pork are you planning on cooking? If it's going to be the type of event where there are lots of appetizers, snacks and maybe even another entree-style dish or 2 you can probably ignore the "1 pound of raw meat per person" rule.
 
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Also, if cooking on site (or wherever, but in other words not in advance at all) remember you can always speed the cook up, if necessary, by raising cooktemp, foiling, or a combo of both. Start as early as possible, regardless, so there is adequate time plus. You can rest the meat for quite some time or hold hot for quite some time offering leeway.
 
Well, I was asked to cook on-site, mainly to make the cooking part of the event (instead of just presenting the meat itself). There won't be much snacks, but there will be kids too in that crowd, so I calculated with 45lbs raw meat. As the eating is planned from about 5-6pm, I thought of starting at midnight to err on the safe side (I expect about 14 hours at around 230-250F), or maybe starting even a bit sooner, not sure..

About resting the meat, I don't have a cooler so I simply thought of leaving it in the closed WSM once ready. Would that work for 1-3 hours max? But then, if the smaller butts get ready sooner, I'm not sure where I could rest them, so maybe I could really use a cooler box in that case..

One more WSM 22 related question in my mind: the upper and lower grates are about the same temp or will I need to swap the meat between them somewhere in the middle? My small 14" doesn't have a significant difference in temp on the two grates.
 
I had a 22 WSM and now use a 14. To me there is really no difference in cooking in the 22 except the 22 takes a whole bag of charcoal. Load up both racks and you should be fine.
 
Why not do two cooks? One off site on your friends large cooker. Do it ahead of time and follow the previous advice on how to hold and/or reheat it. Then, drag your smaller, easier-to-transport cooker to the site and cook some additional pork to provide the ambiance they're looking for. Combine the two batches, and everyone will be happy. Plus, cooking on the large cooker ahead of time will let you know where you stand well before it's time to eat. Chances are you'll be successful, but if it turns out to be a real disaster, you'll have time to place an emergency phone call to Bubba's BBQ Catering service. ;)
 
Kristof Jozsa said:
Well, I was asked to cook on-site, mainly to make the cooking part of the event (instead of just presenting the meat itself).
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No big deal.
Kristof Jozsa said:
...or maybe starting even a bit sooner, not sure..
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Sooner is better if you can swing it. ALways good to have more time as you can rest and/or hold hot.
Kristof Jozsa said:
About resting the meat, I don't have a cooler so I simply thought of leaving it in the closed WSM once ready. Would that work for 1-3 hours max? But then, if the smaller butts get ready sooner, I'm not sure where I could rest them, so maybe I could really use a cooler box in that case..
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You can wrap in several thicknesses of foil and then, my favorite, a beach towel. Any container - a cooler, cardboard box, microwave or yes, even the cooker if no longer cooking - will work. Well wrapped, a container is not crucial, just helpful.
Kristof Jozsa said:
One more WSM 22 related question in my mind: the upper and lower grates are about the same temp or will I need to swap the meat between them somewhere in the middle? My small 14" doesn't have a significant difference in temp on the two grates.
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Don’t bother swapping the butts around. Not necessary.
 
Tony-Chicago said:
If there is an oven, remember it is your friend.
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I agree with Tony if there is an oven take advantage of it. Once the meat is wrapped no more smoke is hitting the meat. I cooked the same amount of meat for a large group as well. Once the pork hit 160 I wrapped and put in a oven set at 225 and it finished right on schedule.
 
Kristof Jozsa said:
So I have my trusty lil 14.5 WSM for 3+ years now and it has over 40 cooks already. I'm very comfortable cooking for 6-8 people and can make a 16h cook with an empty pan and without a hint of stress, rolling amazing food to friends most of the time.

This week I got an interesting request which I could not really turn down: to prepare pulled pork for about 50 people. Naturally, my small cooker would not qualify for the task, but a friend offered me to borrow his 22" WSM. I know his beast by sight but I've never cooked on it.. it's such a scary monster compared to my 14"..

Hence my questions, how different are these two? If I follow my instincts and rely on my experience with the 14", will about the same things happen, or I need to approach the Rocket a bit differently? Eg. I assume I would need at least half a chimney of lump to start the minion method? Also, if I bring this up to 230F and then add like 45lbs of cold meat, wouldn't this thing just die out completely on me? I also have no idea how sensitive the 22" is, whether it tends to overheat or rather cool out in general, etc.. I assume I'd need refueling after about 8 hours with quality lump (my preferred fuel for all cooks).

Luckily, I only need to care about the meat and the smoking, all sides are taking care of by others. What advices would you pass to make this event succeed?
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CHEAT!

Ask friends family to borrow instapots

Smoke pork for 45 minutes 225 - 250 Throw into instapot for an hour 20 minutes.

Done. Drain fat Freeze reheat later.

Everyone loves my pulled pork!
 
To wrap up this story, it was an overwhelming success. I got a cooler box, started way earlier than I needed to (10pm previous day) and finished smoking after 16 hours, but still about 2.5 hours before the party started. I had zero trouble with the 22.5" WSM (and I did not fill the water pan either), in fact, both cookers were behaving exactly the same, having their grate temp within 0-10F most of the time! I refilled them together too and the whole process was really smooth and easy enough. I'm sharing my favorite pic of the night..

A few takeaways: starting around midnight will be the right choice next time, so I don't have to wake up at 5am for the first refill. The advice of portioning the food myself (queueing up people with their plates) was a really good one, we had about zero waste this way and it made the whole thing very personal too. At last, it's very grateful to barbecue for people not familiar with BBQ food, I got so many questions and a loud success at the end.

Thank you all for the advices and encouragement, you really helped me a lot making this happen!
 

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That sounds awesome. Well done. I've manned the grill for dogs and burgers at work for about 300 and I can attest it's a job that is much more difficult than it seems on paper.
 
MikeLucky said:
That sounds awesome. Well done. I've manned the grill for dogs and burgers at work for about 300 and I can attest it's a job that is much more difficult than it seems on paper.
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There are many jobs that look simple from the outside. But as you say, are much harder from the inside
 
Tony-Chicago said:
How much food did you have to cook? Were you the only chef?
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There were 10 butts, with a total of 48.5lbs. The big WSM took 7 of them, my little one had 2 and they made some other food from the last one for some of the kids. We were only at around 42 at the end (some did not turn up) but had also 1.5 butts left.

I was doing the cooking on my own, but everything else was taking care of by the ladies around (making sides, food for kids, slicing bread, etc).

Mike, dogs and burgers for 300 sounds like a hell of a job compared to my tasks here!
 
Thanks. Was not sure if there were side dishes. About a pound per person, great idea. I do the same. Without other foods the pork may have run out!
 
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