GOT HIRED OUT.....THE OUTCOME

[Consooger]

SO I posted a few weeks back about my future father in law asking me if I can do his company's lunch for his company. I was feeding 50-60 people. I didn't know much about what I was getting myself into before I agreed but I figured "why the hell not" So after much insight, advice and lots of back and forth on here from everyone I figured I would post everything that happened from start to finish (well most of it).

This cookout wasn't as graceful/professional as I wanted it to be and I was told that they did not want me to serve anything, they wanted all people to grab their food themselves buffet style, so I said sure. Grabbed to large warming pans to keep the pork warm, set em up and sat back until I had to clean up when they were done.

Here's what I went with.

7 butts (totalling 61 lbs, give or take)


I went with 3 butts injected with apple juice, rubbed down with molasses and some John Henry's Pecan rub (that stuff is amazing by the way)
the other 4 butts I injected with apple juice, rubbed down with molasses and some Salt Lick clone (THANKS LARRY) this is my favorite way to make my pork.

The players


What I decided to do was to start smoking 2 butts at a time starting Saturday afternoon and wanted to end by Tuesday evening, just in time for Wednesday afternoon. Problem wa sit was supposed to rain over the next few days and evening. No big deal, I went to Wal Mart and picked me up  So I started the 2 salt lick butts at around 3:00 pm Saturday afternoon and they finished right around 2 pm Sunday afternoon. Went with 5 hours of hickory on the Salt Lick butts.




Monday evening after all pulled (tray 1 of 2)


2 butts rubbed down with Pecan rub. On a 5 hour ride with Pecan pucks. Started Sunday evening and finished around 8:00 pm Monday night.




After 25 hours at 230



Now I didn't take any pictures of the remaining butts all prepped or trimmed but here they are on Tuesday evening. I mixed pecan with hickory since I had to mix the Pecan butts and the Salt Lick butt in the smoker at the same time (yeah I know I'm lazy and didn't plan this out too well)

Pecan 3


Pecan 4


Salt Lick 3


Bone slid right out of the one pecan butt




Salt Lick





Now I also had my mother make 2 gallons of slaw for these sammies or on the side. I hate the stuff so if it were me I would have went without it but what do I know. No pics but everyone loved that stuff. There was about a little over a half gallon left.

I also supplied my own sauces for this. 3 of them I made and the other one I bought.

They are:

Good Ol' Scotts (thanks Rick, this is some good stuff)


Spicy Bourbon (my own recipe adapted from a few recipes I have seen on here)


Grape Ape, don't ask me where I come up with some of these names (AKA Grapette with my own twist, this sauce I made back in April and had it age until now, WOW that stuff came together rather well)


Coal Cracker (I'm from Schuylkill County and these Berks County folk always call me a Coal Cracker and make fun of my roots, they weren't making fun of where I come from after they tasted this) This is my own recipe I came up with after trial and error, very distinct taste, sweet, spicy, little bitter, with an outstanding finish and bite at the end.




Now onto the pork...All pork which was finished was vaccum sealed and placed in my refrigerator.

after smoke, cooking time, adding apple juice and re-warming etc, it yielded about 50 lbs of pork.
here it all is being warmed up before the ride to the feast.

Salt Lick (my fiance wanted to call it Spicy Swine, sure I said)




Pecan BBQ



And that my friends is history. The lunch went on without issue and everyone LOVED it. I am now booked for next year for what they say because "they were all getting tired of cold and or burnt hot dogs every year" I also have a list of people that went to my future father in law asking what else I can do and how they can have me supply food for parties and events for them. So needless to say a monster perhaps has been created, but in the end that's what I was kind of hoping for.

Special thanks definately go out to all on here with all the great advice and guidance for this event and making it such a success.

AND YES I DID SKIM FROM THE PORK AT HOME, I SAVED MYSELF A SMALL CONTAINER, BUT SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  :-X

- John

[Hedlyna]

Great job, glad it turned out good for you.  That's some good looking pork


Adam

[wipf9994]

that looks awesome.

[beefmann]

awesome job

[smoke em if you got em]

Very nice. So which sauce was most popular. I'm sort of a sauce fanatic and those are very interesting.

Mike

[Keymaster]

Nice Job, Glad it worked out well !!  So you left a sentence a little short, you went to Walmart and picked up? I'm guessing a pop up canopy.

What I decided to do was to start smoking 2 butts at a time starting Saturday afternoon and wanted to end by Tuesday evening, just in time for Wednesday afternoon. Problem wa sit was supposed to rain over the next few days and evening. No big deal, I went to Wal Mart and picked me up  So I started the 2 salt lick butts at around 3:00 pm Saturday afternoon and they finished right around 2 pm Sunday afternoon. Went with 5 hours of hickory on the Salt Lick butts.

[Smokin Elvis]

Nice job.  Have you compared hickory to oak smoke?  Curious....have always used oak but might give hickory a try.  Or a blend?

[GusRobin]

great job, glad it all came together

[KyNola]

Great job John!

[Ka Honu]

Excellent job!  You got 50 pounds of product from 61 pounds raw butt?  That's gotta be some kind of record.

[mikecorn.1]

Nice work on the Poke. They all look excellent  ;)

[Up In Smoke]

Excellent, just Excellent!
glad to hear all went well. and congrats on the gig next year......Time for a bigger smoker?

[Consooger]

Nice job.  Have you compared hickory to oak smoke?  Curious....have always used oak but might give hickory a try.  Or a blend?

yes I went to Wal Mart for a pop up canopy. As for the sauces everyone loved the Coal Cracker sauce and the Grapette sauce. The other 2 there were more left of. As for the overall weight I think it might have had to do with the apple juice that was added into it that gave it the weight, either that or the fiance did it wrong. I had her weigh it as I was picking up the slaw from my mother.

As for a larger smoker, I'm trying to convince my fiance to let me come up with a way to buy Ricks MAK off him...havta figure out a way to get to Savannah though........

John

[muebe]

Great job on all that great food!

[TedEbear]

Looks good.  Did you use your Roman Pork Puller?  Your pieces look a bit larger than what I ended up with after my 4 butt party.  That tool made them so much easier and faster to pull.