BBQ'ing for LOTS of People

This Saturday was our neighbors graduation open house, and I bbq’ed the meat for them. The plan was for 115 people! On the meat menu was pulled (bbq’ed) pork, bbq chicken, seasoned chicken and of course the ole standby of hamburgers and hot dogs.

I had 31 pounds of pork shoulder to smoke. So, I started with 13 pounds in my smoker on Thursday night. I pulled it off Friday morning, wrapped and stuck it in a pre-heated cooler. Around lunch time, Jen pulled it and she and Jim (the neighbor) had to taste test it for lunch. Jen put that first batch in the refrigerator to be reheated for the party.

I put another 18 pounds to smoke on Friday night. I put it on around 11pm and scheduled it to come off about 3 hours before eating time. Again, I wrapped that, stuck it in a pre-heated cooler, and covered it all in towels. That batch was ready to be pulled at eating time and Jen did that for me.

With that out of the way, I switched the smoker over to cook chickens with indirect heat, and put 4 chickens on it. I had two weber kettles going and set that up for indirect cooking as well, and put about a chicken and a half on each. All of it was cooked with hickory smoke, and the indirect cooking keeps it juicy and makes the skin a bit crisp and keeps you from having to move stuff around or have the chance of burning it. Meanwhile, the previous set of pork was in the oven at 250 degrees to be reheated slowly.

All that chicken was ready about 15 minutes before eating time, and was put in the chafing dishes to keep warm. At this time, one weber kettle was converted over for direct heat cooking and the hamburgers and hot dogs were thrown on there. I kept the smoker and other weber cooking chicken until we were done for the night.

Overall, it went extremely well. My mom and dad came down to watch the kiddies so that Jen and I could help get ready and/or cook. Brendan was well entertained chasing cute girls around, so my dad was able to help me out on the grills, and of course to man the keg. It’s a sucky job, but someone has to do it.

I got lots of compliments, mostly on the pork. Everyone seems to really love that stuff, and it is something that you don’t find up here very much. Sharon (the neighbor) and Jen had said that people had told them stuff like “It was the best food they have ever had at a party” and that people had asked if this is what I did for a living. So, I guess you could say that everyone was happy with the food :) I am just glad that everything went smooth.