What is the max amount of pork you have smoked in a 4 rack?

[DukeNukeIt]

Ok, I've got a question.  What is the maximum amount of pork (Boston butt) that you have successfully smoked in a 4 rack Bradley?  Might have to do some pulled pork for 200 people, so I'll need at least 80-100 lbs of pork.  This might be a real nightmare... 

[Grouperman941]

With the help of house ovens, I have done 4 and 6 large butts at once. When I did four, I smoked two for three hours and transferred them to a roasting pan on a rack inside. Then I put the other two in, smoked and finished in the Bradley. When I did 6, I managed to stand them up for the first batch and smoke four, which I moved to the oven and then cooked two in the Bradley.

After doing all that, I discovered that the pulled pork is better after sitting in the fridge and even being frozen for a bit. So if I know I need a lot, I just pace myself, pulling and freezing until I have what I need stored up. I will only push the limits again if I have a time constraint.

[Ka Honu]

The most I've ever put in my stock OBS at once is about 40 pounds (4 ten-pounders). Start way early and bag/freeze till event day.

OBTW, if the pork is the main meat entree, you''ll probably want about 6-8 ounces per person. For 200 people that translates to 75-100 pounds of cooked product. The ratio of product to raw for pulled pork is about 60% so that means you'll want to start with 125-167 pounds raw.

[beefmann]

what you  can  do is smoke some of the  meat and then move to the  main  oven,,, start some  more in the  bradley and move to crock  pots  then  start the  last batch and pray that they  get  done close to the  same time

[warningtrax]

I am in the middle of a 2-day, 50+ lbs. of pork butt smoke for a party of almost 100. Seven butts total, but I can only fit three or four at a time in the BD smoker. Did the three largest yesterday. Got them on at 8:00, in the oven at 6:00 to finish. FTC at about 8:30 or so. They pulled in minutes and thankfully came out perfectly.

I got the remaining four in today at 7:00. Rinse, lather, repeat....

Slight hiccup...getting E error on smoke generator after depositing a full stack of apple and hickory chips into the water bowl! Thankfully, neighbor has exact same unit so I threw his generator on and we're back in business.

Was seriously considering smoking the four overnight. Very glad I didn't. I'm on my second smoke generator (first was DOA). These units are a little too twitchy for my liking.

[DukeNukeIt]

Thanks for all the replies.  Looks like if this is a go, I'll have to cook the butts beforehand and vac-pac everything till the day of the event.  It would be nice to not have any stress waiting for food to get done :)

Side note, does anyone have a recipe for all the leftover yummy liquid that I catch in my FTC pan?  I was thinking of separating the fat from the juices and reduce the liquid down in a saucepan and adding it back to the meat.

[watchdog56]

I just let the juice cool down in trig then skim the fat off and put juice in jar for later use.

[tskeeter]

Thanks for all the replies.  Looks like if this is a go, I'll have to cook the butts beforehand and vac-pac everything till the day of the event.  It would be nice to not have any stress waiting for food to get done :)

Side note, does anyone have a recipe for all the leftover yummy liquid that I catch in my FTC pan?  I was thinking of separating the fat from the juices and reduce the liquid down in a saucepan and adding it back to the meat.

My experience is that the drippings reduce a lot during the smoking process.  To prevent the drippings from being too strong for my taste, I find that I have to add quite a bit of water back to the drippings prior to use.

[GusRobin]

I cooked with a Pro team a while back and I learned an easy way to separate fat from drippings. They use a batter dispenser similar to this:
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/chicago-metallic-trade-batter-dispenser-in-4-cup-capacity/1017470086?Keyword=batter+dispenser

You pour the drippings in and let sit for a couple minutes. Fat floats to the top and you just open the dispenser and let it drain out from the bottom and stop it when it gets to the fat that is on the top.