A few weeks ago I was asked to provide the main course for a large group of people at our church. I've done this same cook in the past and they wanted the smoked pulled pork again.
I thought I'd report here just what it took and how I did it.
Diners - 180 people (90 couples) ages from 35 to 70 with a median age around 45.
Sides - Pot luck - salads & veggies
I bought 2 full cases of pork butts from Sams club at $1.10 a pound. A case costs around $70. Each case has 4 packs of 2 butts, or a total of 16 butts. I only cooked 12 butts and froze the other 4 for later use.
I cooked the 12 pork butts in 3 cooks spread over 2 weeks. The first 2 cooks were on week days. I started in the mid afternoon around 4:00. Using my WSM with 2 butts on the top rack and 2 butts on the bottom rack. I heavily trimmed the fat cap so I wouldn't waste too much of the bark.
At 3:00 in the morning I got up and wrapped the butts in tin foil and put them into a 225 degree oven to push the finish before I went to work. Finish temp was between 195 and 200.
At 6:00 I did rough pulls on all 4 butts and put each butt into 1 gallon Food Saver bags then vacuum packed and froze them.
On Friday night before the dinner I has 8 fully cooked and frozen butts vacuum packed in my freezer.
At 8pm on Friday night I moved the frozen butts to a refrigerator to start defrosting. At 11:00pm I started the final 4 butts smoking.
At 3:00pm on Saturday I pulled final 4 butts and vacuum packed them. I put the 4 packs into an ice chest to hold the heat until the meal.
At 4:00 I put 8 still mostly frozen packs into 2 big Hamilton electric roasters to begin heating. I covered them with water and roated them every 20 minutes. I set the roasters to 200 degrees.
At 5:00 I put the thawed packs into another ice chest, empied the roasters and headed to the church. I again loaded 4 packs into each roaster covered with water and set the temp to 250.
At 6:15 I removed the packs, emptied the water and washed the roaster inserts. Then I cut open the packs and emptied them back into their roasters. 4 packs per roaster or roughly 15 pounds of finished meat per roaster.
As we cut open the packs, the smell filled the hallways and people started poking their heads in to see what smelled so good.
This put 30 pounds of meat out on the serving tables with another 15 pounds of freshly cooked meat standing by in an ice chest ready to refill if needed.
We had 2 long serving tables down each side of the hall with buns, meat, and bbq sauce at the head of each table. The salads were placed just behind that. This let 4 lines of people serve themselves at once. One line down each side of the 2 serving tables. It took just over 20 minutes for 180 people to serve themselves. After the initial serving about 1/3 of the meat was still in the roasters but people getting seconds reduced that to just a pound of left over meat. I never had to refill either roaster.
Final statistics of what was actually consumed.
8 Pork butts
100 Ounces of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce
22 Ounces of Hot & Spicy KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce
130 Hamburger buns
As I said earlier, this was an adult church group with a median age of 45. Most men in suits and women in dresses. A different audience might have eaten more and certainly would have used more BBQ sauce and buns.
I thought I'd report here just what it took and how I did it.
Diners - 180 people (90 couples) ages from 35 to 70 with a median age around 45.
Sides - Pot luck - salads & veggies
I bought 2 full cases of pork butts from Sams club at $1.10 a pound. A case costs around $70. Each case has 4 packs of 2 butts, or a total of 16 butts. I only cooked 12 butts and froze the other 4 for later use.
I cooked the 12 pork butts in 3 cooks spread over 2 weeks. The first 2 cooks were on week days. I started in the mid afternoon around 4:00. Using my WSM with 2 butts on the top rack and 2 butts on the bottom rack. I heavily trimmed the fat cap so I wouldn't waste too much of the bark.
At 3:00 in the morning I got up and wrapped the butts in tin foil and put them into a 225 degree oven to push the finish before I went to work. Finish temp was between 195 and 200.
At 6:00 I did rough pulls on all 4 butts and put each butt into 1 gallon Food Saver bags then vacuum packed and froze them.
On Friday night before the dinner I has 8 fully cooked and frozen butts vacuum packed in my freezer.
At 8pm on Friday night I moved the frozen butts to a refrigerator to start defrosting. At 11:00pm I started the final 4 butts smoking.
At 3:00pm on Saturday I pulled final 4 butts and vacuum packed them. I put the 4 packs into an ice chest to hold the heat until the meal.
At 4:00 I put 8 still mostly frozen packs into 2 big Hamilton electric roasters to begin heating. I covered them with water and roated them every 20 minutes. I set the roasters to 200 degrees.
At 5:00 I put the thawed packs into another ice chest, empied the roasters and headed to the church. I again loaded 4 packs into each roaster covered with water and set the temp to 250.
At 6:15 I removed the packs, emptied the water and washed the roaster inserts. Then I cut open the packs and emptied them back into their roasters. 4 packs per roaster or roughly 15 pounds of finished meat per roaster.
As we cut open the packs, the smell filled the hallways and people started poking their heads in to see what smelled so good.
This put 30 pounds of meat out on the serving tables with another 15 pounds of freshly cooked meat standing by in an ice chest ready to refill if needed.
We had 2 long serving tables down each side of the hall with buns, meat, and bbq sauce at the head of each table. The salads were placed just behind that. This let 4 lines of people serve themselves at once. One line down each side of the 2 serving tables. It took just over 20 minutes for 180 people to serve themselves. After the initial serving about 1/3 of the meat was still in the roasters but people getting seconds reduced that to just a pound of left over meat. I never had to refill either roaster.
Final statistics of what was actually consumed.
8 Pork butts
100 Ounces of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce
22 Ounces of Hot & Spicy KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce
130 Hamburger buns
As I said earlier, this was an adult church group with a median age of 45. Most men in suits and women in dresses. A different audience might have eaten more and certainly would have used more BBQ sauce and buns.
