Night of one hundred and nine slabs...

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I posted this on Ray Basso's site on Monday, thought I'd post here and give an update on how the WSM is STILL and will always be the little engine that could! The below ribs were pre-sold as a fundraiser. I did all the cooking this past saturday night.

First of all, I'm glad it's over!!!

Here's a 'readers digest version' of the cook:

6pm. Sam's Club. Pick up 6 cases of loin backs, a roll of foil, box of gloves, 6 bags of kingsford, and 2 packs of foil pans.

7pm. Home. Start getting the WSM's ready, dump 3/4 bag of kingsford in the ok joe, toss in 3 starter cubes and a little more charcoal on top.

7:45pm. Start skinnin' ribs. I have 5 coolers PACKED with ribs and ice. I know I'll be up all night, so I have everything outside set up like competition camp (w/o the ezup).

9:00pm. OK, I have 57 slabs skinned, rubbed, rolled and ready to put on. 30 go on the ok joe, 27 go between my two bullets. 13 on one 14 on the other.

11:30pm. I start taking all the ribs off and begin foiling them up. I only take about 10 rolled slabs off at a time.

midnight. All 57 slabs are foiled and back on their respective cookers.

I take a break for an hour. I know if I sleep, it will be hell to get back up, so I just stay outside and sit in the lawn chair.

It's 1:15am and I decide to get back at it....until....the very distinct sound of wood(lumber) being busted catches my attention. I live on a dead end, and am the second to the last house before the end of the street. There is a wood privacy fence that seperates my neighbor and a large upscale apartment complex. So...my house, neighbor, woodfence (our street stops at the fence obviously) and then the parking lot for upscale apartments....okay....so the noise is coming from behind my neighbors house. It's dark and the only light on is my porch light...so I creep between our houses and take a look. (Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done). Armed with my cellphone, I take a peek and definitely see someone kicking out the fence boards into my neighbor's back yard. He doesn't see me, so I sneak back to the house, lock the doors, and call 911. The calvary arrives and has an attitude already. He wakes up the neighbors asks if they're ok, and they are, take a look around his back yard, see where the guy was kicking out the boards, shrugs, and goes to get in his car. Now I knew all along that more than likely they wouldn't catch the guy, but I had to be out there all night and wasn't comfortable with a prowler poking around about 75 feet from where I was standing. I say to the officer "well, sorry for wasting your time, but thanks for coming out anyway." He gets in his squad car, didn't say a word and drives off. Nice.

OK, so now it's 2:30am, I've got 52 slabs to skin, rub, and roll. I've got to get the other 57 out of the cooker, and pack in coolers. Needless to say, the whole prowler thing screwed up my schedule.

3:30 am. The first load is packed in coolers. The second load is skinned.

4:30 am. The second load is cookin away. Again, 30 on the joe and 22 between my two WSMs.

OK, I've got to get a little sleep. After I pick up a little, I take a quick shower to degrease and desmoke ( I was standing downwind from the smokestack by accident all night.)

5am hit the bed.

6:15am. up and at 'em again.

7am. the second load is foiled and back on.

8am. The second load is packed up in the coolers, camp is broken down, and we're ready to head to church.

All told:
109 slabs of loin backs
used 4 bags of kingsford ( 3 on the joe, only 1 between my two wsms of which I of course NEVER had to mess w/ the fire. Both ran all night at 231.)
7 logs of apple wood for the joe and 12 chunks of cherry on the WSMs.
used 1/2 of a roll of heavy duty foil.
5 55 quart igloo coolers and 1 160 quart igloo cooler.

THAT my friends....was a LOT of work! But I had fun...that IS what it's about...isn't it??? :-)
 
Steve,
Man what a tale. All I can say is that you
are one bad *** mo fo. Wow.
Way to go Mets fan.
John
 
I'm guessing you had to roll those ribs pretty tight in order to get 6 or 7 per grate in the WSM, right? Did that present any problems?

Great story,
Chris
 
Steve
Ain't you got one of those long BBQ forks to fight off bad guys, they are a must.
Great story.
Jim
 
Steve,
I read this over at the BBQ Forum, and even though I know how it comes out, I had to read it again. Great story!

There were two questions asked on the BBQ Forum that I liked your answers to. Chris asked one of them (how did you fit 7 rolled slabs of ribs on one level of your cooker?).

The other one is: How do you foil a rolled rack of ribs?
 
OK, here's the answers. (Dadnabit I knew I shoulda took pictures).

As far as rolling the ribs, I didn't really roll them that tight. Since I kinda had my 'choice' of which ones to pick and choose of where they go in the cooker, it really wasn't a problem. I just overlapped the two outside bones of each slab on each end and ran ONE big heavy bamboo skewer between the bones and through the other 'side' of the roll to keep it in place. I had no problem only using one skewer.

OK, how to fix 14 slabs on a WSM....easy peasy (stolen from Rick Salmon).

Roll four slabs, spread them out on the bottom grate to where the outside of the roll is not going past the waterpan. Spread them out in a diamond pattern, semi-equidistant from one another. Next, roll three more slabs and place them in a triangle pattern and place them standing on top of the four on the bottom. 7 slabs, one grate, 1/2" to spare before the bottom of the top grate. Do the same thing on the top grate. There you have it. 14 slabs.

Lastly, I did NOT foil the slabs rolled up. I pulled the skewers out, laid them meat side down, then sealed them up. Two things to watch out for when doing this...
1) The reaaaaaalllllly long skinny bone on the slab really screws with you with trying to foil. It keeps poking through. I found myself whacking off this stupid little bone before I would foil. Voila! no problemo.
2) Also, after being rolled and smoked for two hours, they get to be a little stiff. I found myself 'flexing' the slab in the other direction to get it to lay flat on the foil. They straighten back out after cooking in the smoker again.

That was probably the most labor intensive cook I've ever done. It was fun though.

I guess the whole moral to this story is...the bullets kept right on chuggin' ALL NIGHT. I never had to mess with them, while I was always tweaking the stick burner. God bless Weber! :-)
 
Got to be one of the coolest BBQ stories of all time... and for a good cause. Well done!
 
ah heck coach. I don't know about all that! /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
I just like to cook! This is the third BIG cook I've done. First one was 184lbs of butts back in March of 2001. Second one was 285lbs of butt in April 2002 and now this one. All fundraisers. This is the first one that I did by myself. I don't think I'll do it again by myself. Skinnin' those ribs isn't bad, but after about slab # 60, you start to get tired of it!

It was a lot of fun!
 
Steve,

What kind of a fundraiser warrants that much butt? - Sounds like a challenge I would love to attempt if ever the need arose. How many WSM's did your wife let you buy??? more than 1? that is the real unbelievable part...

Coach B
 
I only have two WSM's. I bought them with some competition prize money from last summer.

The first two butt fundraisers we've done was for a Crisis Pregnancy Support center for married or unmarried women who are seeking alternatives to abortion. All the proceeds we raised on those two butt cooks went to the center.

We cooked the butts in two offsets.

We used a similar approach to the 'quick cook' method for butt before it was in vogue. Here's what we do when cooking large quantities of butts.

Take a butt and a sharp knife. Cut lengthwise on the fat cap from one end to the other no more than 1/3 the way through then do the same thing from side to side. You are scoring the but 1/3 the way through. Do NOT go more than 1/3 the way through because you will now flip the butt over to the opposite side and do it again. What you wind up with is a butt scored from the top and the bottom with the middle 1/3 not scored (all the meat still needs a place to be attached to.

Next, rub the tar out of it! You can put a lot more rub on a scored butt than a non-scored one. Work the rub into the crevaces of the butt (did I just say that?...PORK butt that is.)

Next, throw them on the cooker and cook at 275 until the internal temps are at 150-160.

Next, wrap them TIGHT in PLASTIC wrap THEN foil. Yes, I know, PLASTIC WRAP THEN FOIL. The bandaid AND the crutch both in the same sentence.

After the butts are wrapped tight in plastic and foil, put them back on the cooker and cook until 205-210 internal.

The scoring allows more rub to penetrate the meat and also allows the meat to cook faster. The plastic and foil allows the meat to cook in it's own juices and IMHO cuts down on loss when shredding.

OK, so after the butts have reached 205-210, pack them TIGHT in coolers. You can fit about a dozen butts in a 55QT coleman cooler. Trick is DO NOT open the cooler until you are ready to serve the meat! We've kept coolers of hot butts hot for 12+ hours using this method.

OK, you're ready to shred. First, throw away the forks and bear claws. Why? I'll tell ya. First put on a pair of white cotton gloves like the meat cutters use in your store THEN top them with a pair of disposable latex ones. The latex keeps the liquid out and the cotton protects your hands from 200+ degree meat! People can't seem to grasp the fact that a butt at 200+ is like plunging your hands into BOILING WATER. They wonder why they get burned. Duh.

OK, now you're gloved up! Take a butt from the cooler, and place in a foil pan. Tear the foil off and throw away, take a knife and cut the plastic open. Then turn the plastic inside out to make the butt 'fall' out. The bone will fall out clean with little or NO meat attached at all. Now, 'squeeze' the butt (pork butt) with your gloved hands and bam! In about 5 seconds you've shredded an entire butt ready for sammiches.

We've done this and put at least 1/3 to 1/2lb of meat on a 4" bun, served w/ pickle spear, chips, and pop. $5 per person per meal.

It's a lot of work, but people can't resist the first smell of bbq in the early spring! We've raised about $3000 between the two butt cooks and about $1100 on the rib cook. The trick is to sell a TON of butts ahead of time whole. We sold whole butts at $25 each and gave them to the customers still in the foil/plastic. Just print up a sheet on how to 'shred' the meat and how to reheat and hand it to them with their food.

Two of the best compliments I've ever gotten from these charity cooks are:
"Hey Steve, have you ever saw that commercial where the dish network guy is installing the dish and the homeowner starts crying and hugs him for his work? I could have hugged you at dinner last night!"

and

"So I sat down to eat your Q last night and after one bite, my eyes rolled in my head and I told my wife 'I don't know where I'll go when I die, because I've already been to heaven.'"

The compliments are enough for me. I don't make a dime off of the charity cooks. It's just worth it to me to see the look on peoples faces when they eat something you've slaved over.

If you have any other bbq fundraising questions, shoot me an email at stevendwilson@hotmail.com
 
Amazing. I'm beat after a KCBS competition and that is not near as much work. Do you have a catering permit or does the health department not bug you?
 
No, the health department does not bug me BECAUSE in the county where we do this, all three fundraisers have been 'private events'. The church of course is a non-profit, so they don't worry about it.

I've let them know each time I'm about to cook just to be safe and they say.."oh yeah, you're the bbq guy....you're fine." :-)
 
Steve:
You are the MAN! Haven't posted (or smoked)in a while.

Hey, do you think the prowler might have been after your ribs??? Drop me an email and let me know how you've been...

Ken
 
now that I put some thought into it, I think it might have been the ndn's (the one that got woke up) daughter sneaking in. They're known to frequent the 'hole in the fence' as I've seen them do it a few times.
 
Steve, that is one of the most incredible cooking stories I've ever read! In my book, not only are you a master cook, you are also a master humanitarian. Your motive behind all this work speaks volumes for your character. Thanks, for sharing it with us!
 
Thanks guys for the kudos, but really, it's no big deal. I'm just using my skills to help out with a few charitable organizations. I'm no better than a carpenter who donates his time to a local shelter by putting up walls. I'm no better than someone who donates a saturday to a habitat for humanity house.

I love to cook and I think it's safe to say that everyone on this board does too or we wouldn't take the better part of our days reading this board, taking notes, printing recipes, asking questions, etc. Do what you know how to do for someone else. You will quickly lose sight of your petty needs and wants when you are making someone elses true needs your desire.

ok, ok, I know it's drippy and too good to be true, but do it. Do something for someone else out of the kindness of your heart without a hint of payback in mind. There is NO satisfaction out there like that.
 
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