pulled pork for 40 - what have i gotten myself in to? *UPDATE: Butts are DONE


 
T

TroyRedington

TVWBB All-Star
My job has catered lunch everyday. A few weeks ago we had Famous Daves pulled pork and I made a statement that I'd bring in some of my leftovers so everyone could try some REAL barbecue.

Well, everyone got to talking about it, and the lunch coordinator offered to buy all the supplies if I'll cook.

So, she's requesting 25 pounds of cooked pulled pork.

The biggest i've made is a 13lb butt.

I'm thinking I'll buy five 10lb butts and hope they all fit on the top rack of my 22" cajun bandit.

We eat lunch at 11:30am.
There's an all-hands meeting at 11am that I have to give a small presentation at.

I should PROBABLY get to work by 9 or 10 that day. Is it ok to get the butts done at 8am, foil them, and put them in a cooler until I can pull them at 11:30?

This is SO out of my league.

UPDATE:
So the butts are ON! The biggest is 5.3lbs, the smallest is 4.6. The 4 biggest ones are on the top grate, the smaller 4 are on the bottom grate.

I installed the bbq guru DX when i got home. It took 5 minutes (drilled the hole for it last night). I didn't really think it through... and i put the guru's pit probe on the bottom grate. I put my et-732 on the top.

After 35 minute, the top grate is at 230, bottom at 175. I hope they balance out. I'd hate to see the bottom grate come up to 225 and have the top grate sitting at 300. I wish it was easier to switch them around, but that's just too much meat to move. I probably should NOT have put the clay saucer in the water pan (no water)

I was planning on making my shiner bock (beer) bbq sauce tonight, but i only have 3 bottles in the fridge and at this point i'd rather drink them.

For fuel i'm using one whole bag of stubbs.
for smokewood, one fist sized hunk, and one small chunk of hickory. two fist sized hunks of apple, and a small chunk of cherry.
 
Troy,

You can certainly foil and pack butts into a cooler; they will stay hot for hours. Pulled pork is one of the easier meats to reheat if you have the option. Pulling in advance will save you time at work. A good way to reheat is to pack PP into Foodsaver type bags and place in boiling water or place in pans and foil and then reheat in oven (with a little water, apple juice, chicken stock, etc for moisture). I generally sprinkle the PP with a little rub before serving keeping a sauce on the side. Keep in mind cooking 50 lbs of pork will take longer than a single butt so give yourself plenty of time.

Paul
 
Yeah, I wouldn't worry about holding the meat that long. As long as you double-wrap with foil and cover them with towels in the cooler you should be golden. I've held butts 4-5 hours this way.

Personally I like to leave the butts whole and pull to serve, it's like hosting your own cooking show. It usually gets the guests' stomachs growling too.

Good luck sir.
 
You will be fine. I do cooks similar to yours all the time on my 18.5 WSM. Around here I get the twin cryovac pack butts from Sams Club. They most likely will average 14-16 lbs per pack. You can fit 3 on each rack if you put them on there side in kind of a triangle. They may touch a little at first but they will shrink. Just to be safe I figure 2 hrs per pound of the largest butt. In a cooler wrapped in foil covered with a towel they will stay hot for up to 5 hrs. So just plan your time accordingly. If you can get some one to help you pull it I would wait as long as possible so you can pull just before service.
 
Why would you cook 5, 10-pound butts? That's enough for 70-80 people.

For 40 people, 4 butts in the 6- or 7-pound range is plenty.
 
I was told to have 25lb of cooked meat. :P

I'd much rather cook smaller butts though
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I've never used the lower grate in my bandit. Does the upper or lower cook faster?
 
5x 10 lb butts will NOT fit on the rack of a 22" unless you are doing some major stacking. Even then, not really sure.

4x 8-10 lbs is as much as you can fit. The most I have fit per rack is 40 lbs, and it was tight.

As Kevin stated, you do not need 25 lbs of pulled pork.

I would do 4x 7-8 lb butts and have more than enough food.

And it's just pulled pork, it's in your league!
 
Troy,

Do you use water in the pan ?

If so, the top will cook slightly faster. If you go dry or saucer, the bottom will cook faster. Just put your larger butts on the hotter rack.
 
First of all, for 40 people, you don't need 25 lbs. of pulled pork. You need to smoke 25 lbs of pork butt, which should yield about six oz. of pulled pork per person, or about 60% yield. The easy formula is 10oz uncooked per person.

Regardless, there's nothing wrong with using both racks of your Cajun Bandit, is there? If you want 25 lbs of pulled pork anyway, pick out five of 'em in the 8-9 lb. range to add up to 43 lbs, and put three on the top grate, two on the bottom grate over the water pan. If you only want to cook what's needed, cook three nine pounders and that'll be more than enough.

Use enough wood, and cook overnight, targeting 235*, or about 240-250* at the dome vent like I do in my 18.5" wsm since it's hotter than the grate most of the cook. Assuming the charcoal doesn't suffocate itself, I plan on 7-9lb butts taking about 1.75hr/lb. They won't be tender until they have an IT of 190* or a little higher, and pulling will be quick and effortless with very little fat or connective tissue to remove if you keep the temp down, particularly later on in the cook.

Sensing a little hesitance in your post, in case you think pulling is a chore and you haven't cooked low and long enough before, "pulled pork" doesn't mean "shredded pork". It oughta just about pull itself, and chunks about the size of your thumb is what you want. Just so you know, every butt I've cooked overnight has been much quicker to prepare than ones I cooked during the day at 250-275*.

I always use my cooler to keep butts or briskets hot, for up to six hours or more if needed.
 
thanks guys.

i'm going to scale back the meat a bit, but i'm still planning on cooking enough for LOTS of leftovers. (it's a company culture to take food home after work)

I guess what worries me about the bottom rack is actually getting meat off of it (especially a cooked butt)

i've never used bottom rack, or even placed a grate in that spot.
 
It's not a problem. Either lift the meat off or lift the rack off with the meat.

Unless you do two separate cooks, cook sensibly. Cramming meat in the cooker because you're trying to hit some number from someone who has no idea what she's talking about is not a good idea - it's a potential fiasco. ('Leftovers' are one thing; cooking more than twice the amount of what you need is quite another.)
 
If you cook to tender they will be falling apart. What I do is take a foil pan and line it with foil. Take my tongs and grab a butt off the smoker and set it in the foil lined pan and wrap it up with the excess foil. Sometimes it takes two layers of foil.then I transfer to the cooler. Do this with all the butts put a towel on top and close the lid. Sometimes just for fun I put a wired thermometer in one of the butts to keep an eye on temp, you'll be surprised how long they stay really hot. Also helps to have a table next to the smoker so the transfer to the pan is really quick.
 
Troy, the bottom rack is for cooking on, and there's nothing to it. I have great success using both racks, and don't see any need to rotate or turn, as long as I don't try to cook too fast. (Don't cook too slow, either though.)Heck, I use three grates in my wsm for chicken and ribs.

Anyway, someone might've already said this, but if you use water in the pan (which I understand is a really good idea with the CB if trying to go low-n-slow), the top grate butts should be done first, making it a little easier. I just stick a probe in whichever butt I think will probably be done first, and do my first check when the probed one reaches about the 188* mark. Even though I expect the top grate butts to be done first, I'll also check the ones on the bottom grate through the door. When loading them, it helps to keep that in mind, especially in regards to the position of the bone side.

Like others have already said, I wouldn't try to end up with as much as originally planned, since you have no experience with "big" cooks yet. Main thing is, the cooker will just take longer to get up to temp, and you'll use more fuel. Good luck!
 
i'll be installing a bbq guru during the day on wednesday, that should help with the temps.

i passed by a Penzeys today and stocked up on bbq 3000

how many butts i do, and what time i start will be decided by the size of the butts i can find tomorrow. if i can find 10 pound butts, i'll do 4 of them.

ideally, they'd be done and foiled by 9am.

i need to find a cooler to hold the cooked butts in though.
 
You could always use a blanket or two (that can be washed if your foil seal isn't quite sealed) instead of a cooler.
 
got a cooler tonight

also bought eight 4-5 pound butts

they're in the cooler right now with some ice, hopefully they'll stay cool enough until tomorrow afternoon.

i also drilled a 1 1/8" hole in my kettle so i can install the bbq guru tomorrow before i start.

thinking of putting the meat on around 9pm
 
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