Planning a big barbecue

hornian

hornian

1,000+ Posts
Alright, Memorial Day is almost upon us, and I'm hosting a barbecue at my house. Last year I had about 40 people come by; this year I'm expecting twice as many (the good news is about a quarter of them will be vegetarians so I don't have to cook quite as much). As such, I'm going to need to plan a little better this go round - last year I barely got everything done in time, but I got it in just under the wire and it turned out great.

I figure I'm going to be feeding somewhere around 60 people all told throughout the day. This is my preliminary menu (I'm only doing the meat, my guests are bringing sides):

1 Brisket ~ 12 lbs
4 Racks of pork spareribs ~20 lbs
1 Pork loin ~ 6 lbs
1 Turkey breast ~3 lbs
5 Links of venison sausage ~4 lbs

That's about 40 lbs of meat, although I know the brisket won't actually yield that much edible meat and the ribs have a lot of bones that take up weight, so I'm not sure if that will be enough. I'm thinking about doing 2 briskets, just to be safe, but I've never smoked 2 at once before.

This is where all the magic is going to happen:

pit.jpg


As you can see, I don't have a lot of grill space, so I'm going to have to plan accordingly.

I want to be ready to serve at noon on Monday. And I would like to get some sleep the night before. I'm not sure about the smoking itinerary, but it will probably look something like this:

Saturday night: rub the brisket(s), brine the turkey breast

Sunday:
9:00am - Start the fire.
9:45am - Put the brisket(s) on the pit.
10:00am - Have my first Fireman's 4.
1:00pm - If I have two briskets, rotate them.
2:30pm - Start on my 2nd six pack of Fireman's 4.
4:00pm - Trim and rub the spare ribs.
5:00pm - Take the brisket(s) off, foil them, stick them in the oven .
5:15pm - Put the spareribs on the pit.
6:00pm - Start on the 3rd six pack of Fireman's 4.
8:00pm - Take the ribs off the pit, foil them, put them in the oven with the brisket(s).
10:00pm - Put the ribs back on the pit.
11:00pm - Take the ribs off the pit, put the turkey on the pit.

Monday
2:00am - Hope the turkey is done by now, take it off, clean out the firebox for the morning.
2:30am - Foil everything that is cooked (Briskets, ribs, turkey) and make it fit in my fridge somehow.
3:00am - Get some shut eye.
8:30am - Start the fire back up, put the cooked meat in the oven to warm up.
9:00 - Put the pork loin and venison sausage on the pit, have my first Fireman's 4 of the day.
11:00 - Take the meat out of the oven, let it rest.
11:30 - Get the pork loin and sausage off the pit, let it rest.
11:45 - Start the 2nd 6 pack of Fireman's 4.
12:00pm - Start cutting.

Wow, that is going to be a lot of work. And I'm going to need at least a case of Fireman's 4, Specs better not sell out.

If you have any suggestions for something to add or something on my schedule to move around, let me know. I'm excited to try something this ambitious myself.
 
Looks like you have a well thought out plan -

If it were me, I would cook the briskits and Pork butt the day before, foil the whole briskit and pull the pork, seal and refridge it , then reheat as planned the next day for serving.

Go to bed on time and get good nights sleep.

Then the next day, get up early for the ribs, turkey and sausage. I think re-heated ribs and turkey are less than desirable...IMO. Additionally, you can run the temp a little higher on day 2, cut your cooking time a little...that plus foiling should get it done when you need it.

Still will need the case of beer.
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Part of the fun of smoking briskets is passing out in a chair next to the pit. I vote no on cooking stuff ahead of time unless the pit can't handle the amount of meat necessary.
 
Dude, your timing is all wrong, if you're gonna put the briskets in the fridge anyway you should put them on the pit about midnight Sat night. Rub them Friday night. Let 'em cook overnight and do all the rest of the BBQ Sunday during the day, Staying up until 3am is nuts.
 
Ditto on the 2nd brisket..

A 12lb brisket cooked and trimmed is only going to yield about 5lbs of meat and that isn't going to be enough for 40 carnivores regardless of whatever other meat you have. The shrinkage/waste will be much less on the pork loin, turkey breast and sausage of course, but you only have 13 lbs of that uncooked to start with so you are going to end up maybe 8-9lbs cooked of those.

I would count on 1/2 lb - 3/4 lb cooked meat per average carnivore. You could go on the low side since you are doing spareribs, but I would not include the the weight of the ribs into your cooked meat equation because of the heavy bones and inherent wastage of serving ribs. You are only going to have X number of ribs, unless you plan of chopping them into multiple pieces and people waste more with whole ribs and whole chicken pieces than any other cue in my experience. Cooking 2 briskets (10lbs yield) plus the other meat (8-9lbs yield) is going to get you just under 1/2 lb per carnivore outside of the spare ribs. That's about where I would want to be, FWIW. If you end up with leftover cue, it's not like that's a bad thing.
 
I was going to post almost exactly the same thing as 12thStud. I typically shoot for about 1/2 lb to 2/3 lb meat per person (or, in this case, per carivore). I'd definitely do the 2nd brisket, and if you have any leftover, you can feel free to send it to me!
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I have a brining step in there, look at the Saturday night step.

And it looks like I will be doing 2 briskets for sure after the comments. This should be fun. I think I'll also take the suggestion of smoking the turkey and ribs on Monday. I think I can make everything work on Monday with the spare pit time when the ribs go in the oven and by waking up a bit earlier.
 
Without the second brisket, the food sounds a little light to me. Maybe there will be some hearty sides if you go with only one brisket, but 2 is a better plan. Do them at the same time for sure.
 
Well, it's started, and I'll be cataloguing it in this thread.

I couldn't find any bone-in turkey breasts at HEB or Costco, however, so I may have to do without the turkey. Darn.
 
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