Holding ribs after cooking?


 

Daum

TVWBB Super Fan
I'm participating in a rib fest where we have about 6 hours before anyone shows up to start cooking and then another 7 hours until the food service is done. The goal is max throughput of st louis ribs. I was curious if you'd cooked ribs and then held them in a cooler or similar, then rewarm/set the bark/sauce on a grill just before serving a few hours later? If not I'd need to do basically two sets or so of ribs (assuming 4-4.5 hour cook time), but the event is hoping people could up their rib rack counts so trying to figure out a way to get more through the smoker.

Thanks!
Daum
 
7 hours of serving time is an awfully long time. This begs several questions not the least of which is how many guests will attend and, will this banquet have a starting time or is it a simple in and out as people come and go? How many racks of ribs do you expect to cook, what other items will be on the menu. Inside or outside? I’ve had ten hour parties but never had to actually feed people for more than two.
Sounds like one helluva party!
 
It's an actual rib fest, so the doors open for people to start coming at 12, i'm one of a number of teams. So the hope is people are staggering their ribs to be done so they can serve throughout the time people are there. I'm actually using my workhorse right and expecting to put through over 65 racks, and testing today with a slightly different method of cooking (higher heat) to see if i can up that number more. I'll have another smoker there to also help out. It's outside at a fair ground, there are some vendors selling some sides, but most people come for the ribs!

Daum
 
Quick update on this, last night did a trial run with it running around 275-300 for 2 hours, wrapping for 0.5 hours, then into the cooler until dinner time and the results were really good. Everyone seemed to really like it. I did leave one rack unwrapped for a total of 3.5 hours and a few people (and I) did note the slight texture difference, but for the speed and throughput I need going to go with the wrapping.

Thanks for all the suggestions!
Daum
 

 

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