Feeding 50 for lunch. How much total food?

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I will provide Saturday lunch for 50 adults. They traditionally call this annual lunch their "Pig Roast." Current plan:

<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Pulled pork on plain hamburger buns, sauce squirted on top.
<LI>Links, halved and then cut with several deep diagonal (for presentation) slits, sauce squirted on top.
<LI>Potato salad.
<LI>Baked beans.
[/list]

Anybody with experience have suggestions for how many pounds of uncooked butt, how many pounds of links, how many pounds of potato salad and beans that I should prepare (??)

Dave
 
If I remember correctly, plan on 1-1/2 lbs. of cooked meat , 1/4 pound of potato salad, and 1/2 cup baked beans per person. Since you're also serving links, go with 1/4 lb. per person - usually it's about 1/2 lb., but you're serving pork butt, too, so you have to go lighter on the smaller meat.

This is similar to a wedding I did 15 years ago and planned for 250. We had leftovers and everybody ate until PBF (pants-button failure).

Hope this helps!

Mark
 
I am a fan of better too much than not enough, but 1 1/2 pounds of pork butt sounds a bit high.... how about 1/2 to 3/4 of cooked butt per person? How big are the links? I am not sure about sides... out here a whole lotta people watching carbs. What about a little slaw, salad, or fresh veggie tray?
 
If the group is adults but half being women figuring 1/2 pound per person would be high.
I would start with 50 to 60 pounds of uncooked Butt. That would shrink by aprox 1/2 by the time it is done.
The sides I would go 3 to 4 oz of each, again if folks ate 4 oz of each and 8oz of butt they have just comsumed 1 pound of food, you won't run out!
Jim
 
Yeah, not everyone in the crowd will eat as much as someone like, well... me. My wife will eat one pulled pork sandwich (no more than 3oz meat) and will be full. Jim's estimates sound pretty good.
 
Yes, it's a bit high, but I've been schooled in the "Hawaii" method of catering (a.k.a. "Make sure there's enough for people to take home a plate.") /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif Kinda like edible party favors, ya know...*LOL*

Mark
 
There seems to be a pretty big disparity in recommendations for food supply. I have offered to make pulled pork for a church gathering on Oct. 16th. I have been told to expect 50 people. I only have one WSM. What is the capacity of the WSM for pork butts and how much meat should I anticipate? Also, how much time (roughly) should I budget to get this done. I will put it on the day before, but I just don't know how the cooking times change when this much meat is being done. The gathering starts at 10:00 AM, but people probably won't start eating until around 12:00.

Some things to add. I can likely borrow my father in law's ECB if I need to. Also, we are probably going to make some hamburgers and dogs for those people that don't want pulled pork.

Any help you guys can provide would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
 
Jon,

I'm still a rookie and there are others that can probably give better ideas, but I've done about 30 lbs of boneless shoulder in one cook but it took quite a while (almost 20 hours). Using the MM I didn't have much problem with keeping the heat but I'm still using water and it had to be filled 3 times during the cook. I had a target of 180 - 185 for the meat and I had it off and sitting for 30 - 45 minutes before attacking for pulled pork. I did mine the day before so that the sauce could permeate the pork and then reheated the next day and served from a steam table tray.
 
Jon--

I'd do 6 butts totalling around 45 lbs uncooked.
I'd do two overnight smokes, three butts each smoke and, if you work Mon-Fri, I'd do them both this weekend. If you don't have the time constraint you might want a day or two between for sanity's sake. Smokem, restem, pullem, then chill or freezem. Butt re-heats so well. If you allow youself alot of time by cooking well in advance you can handle any unforeseen issues. You can use the morning of the 16th to re-heat and you'll be breathing easy.

My 3-butt cooks usually run 20-22 hours.
 
Dave, it would be wise to heed the advise of Jim Minion! He is the ultimate source of info on this site!! He is a competition veteran and knows his bbq!!
 
Since I work a somewhat normal Monday through Friday job, it is going to be tough to do two smokes in time for a Sautrday morning event. Is the consensus that 4 butts is the maximum capacity of a WSM without modifications? If so, I am either going to have to add capacity to my smoker or borrow the ECB since I won't have time for two smokes. Man, this is turning out to be more work than I thought.
 
Get 2 cryo packs from your local wholesale club (I use sams). They usually contain 2 7-9 pounders. You can place 2 on each rack if you can get them to stand on end, not the tradioional flat way. This method and quantity of mean will be plenty and it will only costa bout 40 bucks topps. Good luck and let us know how it goes. Oh plan on 20-24 hour+ cook
 
I have done 6 bone-in butts (7-8 pounders) in the WSM at one time. I stood them on their sides and they just fit. Three on each grate. Some of the corners of the butts were touching at first, but as they shrunk they stopped doing that.

It did take a while for the temp to return to the 225-240 range. Maybe let the temp go up a bit higher before putting them on.

Just to let you know it is possible. They took about 20 hours to finish.
 
I too work the "normal" job but have several catering jobs throughout the year. A couple of ideas that I might share about cooking for groups.

Cook the meat in advance and freeze the meat, the foodsaver helps out here. When you are cooking to freeze you should undercook the meat a little as the meat will cook a little extra when you reheat.

I also like to use a turkey roaster to reheat in. You can reheat around 25 lbs of meat in an individual roaster.

Hope this helps.

Budha
 
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