How much ?

I'm no pro like some of these folks but when I make pork I would bet I use 10 ounces of finished product per person. I get roughly a 50% loss on pork --- so about 4 pounds of pork per 8 pounder ( my average with the bone in ).

I know that somebody here probably has better numbers than I do but my guests usually eat 2 sandwhiches pp, with about 5 ounces of meat per sandwhich.

By my way of thinking you can get about 15 pounds max of finished pulled pork... about 240 ounces. That is (60) 4 ounce portions, or (48) 5 ounce portions. Your mileage may vary. And, I don't think you can really do 30 pounds in one cook in a smokette. It would be REAL tight if you could IMO.

So, there is no way, as I see it, that you can feed that many people with one "cook" in the smokette, even with other meats.

Just my .02

He covered it pretty well above.

Lots of caterers use an easy rule of thumb that they get two 4 ounce sandwiches/lb of uncooked butt.

To get 30 lbs in a smokette,you must select butts for shape to fit the slightly narrow racks.

You can cook in advance,pull,and store in half pans to rewarm.

Seems to me I can get about 11 lbs in a Sam's half foil pan.

I have cooked that much and I rotate those off the bottom rack ,part way through the cook.

Better to have a little left over,than not enough.

Agree with the above. You also need to think about prep time. Pulling that much pork is a lot of work.

I'd make them in advance, put in warming trays and then warm up, either in the smoker or an oven, the day of.

Thank you very much for your help and suggestions. Never had so many compliments on food till I got the CS and starting trying all the great suggestions from this bunch.

Dale

yeah... I'd say about 8, 6-lb butts would do it. do it in two loads, 4 butts per load. i would go with two each on two racks. that meat should pull and fill 5 or 6 sam's foil half pans. refrige half and reheat day of, then do the rest to be fresh day of.

It will take more than one cook. Like I said in another post, after the meat is pulled I would add just enough sauce to coat the meat, then refrigerate. This allows the smoke and the sauce to mix nicely.

Besides adding sauce, don't forget to sprinkle some of your rub through the pulled pork. For that much pork, it's a good way to add flavor and you'll have people tell you how great it is.

That's a "pulled pork" secret I use.

Thanks again for the good advise. Started this past Thursday night with eight 7 lb butts. Put on rub and wrapped with saran wrap for 24 hours. Started first 4 at 10 p.m. Friday night. Switched racks at 7 a.m. and finished at 1:00 p.m. at 195 deg. Foiled and put in a cooler for 4 hours then pulled apart and refrigerated. Started second batch of 4 at 4:00 p.m. Saturday and finished at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. Same procedure as with the first smoke. Poured Smokin's baste and mop sauce over each butt I layered into big pan. Reheated in roaster for 1-1/2 hours. Was so moist & tender, was unbelievable. Served about 80 people who all wanted to know how I did it. Was thankful for Smokin's tip on time, as having usually done 1-2 at a time, didn't realize how much extra time it takes for each step, especially pulling. I certainly gave credit were it was due, the CS smoker and the forum.

glad to hear of another success story!

Congrats.

smokin that is no secret...have changed from heavily seasoning outside of the butt to seasoning all of the pulled butt...perfect flavor

Excellent job, glad to hear everything went well.