Help! Opening tomorrow!

As far as drizzling packers with a beef drip,I suspect a full load might drown.

Now on a six ft offset stick burner,you might spray it on with garden pump sprayers.A 260 load of packers would be so moist it could wash off your rub and have trouble getting any bark.

Now,if it was for flavor profile,why not just use a good heavy rub?

Speaking as a chef, why 5# chickens? A 3 - 3.5 broiler will finish in about an hour @ 350 degrees (not sure how high the SM260 will run). Half of a 3.5# broiler makes a pretty good serving as a half or quarter bird.

As for brisket, place a foil or hotel pan with an inch or so of water or beef broth under the meat. Check the amount of liquid at the half way point as some will evaporate. Add more as needed. When the briskets are done, pull and strain the au jus. Skim the fat. Correct flavoring as needed. This makes a great pan re-heat broth or topping over sliced brisket.

Thanks MaxQ, I will show my chef the au jus recipe. We have #5s because thart's what my food rep sold me. I will look into the smaller birds for sure. The SM260 will ony go to 300 degrees, but the smaller bird would def be better. The rep said that was all he could get me, but I think I need to find another source. We are shredding the chicken here.

I had assumed you were serving a half or quarter bird on your menu. Since you're shredding the chicken, the 5# bird is fine though you'll get a faster turn around (smoke time) with the smaller broilers. My suggestion would be to have your chef do a yield test on both the 5 and 3.5 # chickens. I suspect you'll do a bit better with the larger birds.

Good luck with your new venture.

You might want to try random weight breasts and skinless thighs. After allowing for labor, you might find the final cost to be about the same as the whole birds. The random breasts are usually LARGE more than random, and they shred nicely.

Thanks so much for all your replies. We have worked through the steam issues by propping the door open a crack for a bit mid cook. We are considering going to pieces to save time, etc. Thanks Todd. My chef is taking the chicken bones, pork scraps, beef scraps, celery, onions, etc and making a wicked broth. We chill it and use it daily with a little rub to inject the briskets. Makes them extra moist. We have been open a month and thigs are going very well. I will post some pictures on here someday as time allows.

were your meats coming out kinda grey in color. i am experiencing the same problem. how long did you leave the door open?

Hey Joe, for whole chicken we'd crack the door for the last half hour. we are cooking them at 300. Sometimes the wings need to release steam other times not.
We were doing our ribs at 275 and had to crack the door for anywhere from 1/2 hour to an hour. Now we're doing them at 250 and we dont need to crack the door other than when we open to check on them and the steam escapes then. We were having more issues with steam when we were using baby backs. Since we switched to st louis and cut the temp they are awesome. To crack the door open we just took a piece of wire and made a loop at either end then hooked it in the latch and on the smoker to hold it open just a quarter inch so it doesn't start beeping. We're just trying to let steam escape.