Need help on quantities and ideas

quote:

Originally posted by GHB:
Sorry for the long post, but I really need help on this one. This will task my skills to get everyting ready at once and keep hot.

You need to go to the King County (or is it Snohomish) Health District and find out what you need for a temporary event permit. DO NOT try to do this thinking that you're volunteering and are exempt from WA State food service regulations; you aren't. If you service this banquet without the proper permits you will be breaking WA state law.

Now, you may slide by unnoticed but if anyone should become ill, whether it is your food or not, the risks legally and civially are pretty big.

Aside from that, what are you going to use for hot food holding?

Do this like a business, because once you start, and they like your food others will start asking.

If they want you to cook for parties, let them pay. You do it for the family for fun.

I don't know that I'd volunteer. Do you WANT to go through all this for free. Even doing it for cost will require you spending a LOT of time working this.

Dave's right, check about the HD. Would be bad to show up at the event and have them fine you one the spot. But sometimes in small towns, there isn't even a HD.

Fill them up on sides, that will reduce the overall amount.

Probably more chicken than ribs (women?)

You'd need at least on CB per person (that's 40); depending on age of the ladies, 1/3 to 1/2 per would work (depending on size of the chicken)

Ribs, 1 per or 2 bones per would be a plan, so that's 40 to 80 bones.

And as Dave said, how will you keep it warm? You don't want to overcook the breasts then have them dry out. The ribs will be cooked, then held for transport.

Lots of ideas

Thanks Dave and SmokinOkie. Last night I talked to the local Eagles club and they will let the women use thier facilities. They have the necessary banquet license and will let me use thier kitchen. The Eagles womens auxillary and some of the men will help me prepare the sides and I will smoke the meats at my home and they have large insulated boxes (simular to coolers but with shelves) to keep things hot and transport (they are only 5 blocks from my house). I will still voluniteer my services and I have a food handlers card. So I will smoke chicken first, wrap transport in the boxes and keep warm in thier ovens while smoking the ribs. The ladies will assist me in preparing garlic mashed potatoes, veges, cole slaw and baked beans. So I will have lots of help and seems like it will be a fun event with people helping people.

Sounds like a plan, good luck

quote:

Originally posted by GHB:
I will smoke the meats at my home....

The rest of the plan sounds fine; but you are not allowed to use your home in WA state to do ANY bbq or food prep for public events or retail or commercial sales. Not only that, but if a commercial kitchen, like the Eagles Club, allows the import of that home prepared food into their kitchen, then they are in violation of the health district and could lose their commercial kitchen permit.

Washington State has one of the most aggressive commercial food regulations and inspection processes in the US. I would not be surprised if, when they see the event publicized in the media, an inspector will, at minimum, talk to the event coordinators and find out how and from where the food was prepared an came from.

Please, please, go to the HD and talk with them.

Oh gees, guess I will just load the smoker in the truck and take it down the 5 blocks.

quote:

Originally posted by GHB:
Oh gees, guess I will just load the smoker in the truck and take it down the 5 blocks.

I'm really not trying to be a pain, but you really need to work with the health district with this. I am required to keep temperature logs for my pits (I use a temperature logger) so that the log can be reviewed for temperature compliance during cooking.

I've set up two commercial kitchens in WA, and I've helped to set-up a half-dozen others. Again, I'm just trying to help out here.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bugg:

quote:

Originally posted by GHB:
I will smoke the meats at my home....

The rest of the plan sounds fine; but you are not allowed to use your home in WA state to do ANY bbq or food prep for public events or retail or commercial sales. .

You are not totally correct about being allowed to cook at your house in WA state. If you live in a rural area you can according to WA state law have a commercial kitchen in your house as long as it is seperated completely from your residential kitchen, it does not even have to be in a separate building. I know this for a fact because I have a commercial BBQ kitchen in my house with all of the pemits required by both Clarke County building department and the Health Department. The process took me 4 months to get them though.

This allows me to cook all of the food in my commercial kitchen at my house and transport to catering job or sell from any location that I choose as long as that place meets the health department requirements.

quote:

Originally posted by MS:

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bugg:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by GHB:
I will smoke the meats at my home....

The rest of the plan sounds fine; but you are not allowed to use your home in WA state to do ANY bbq or food prep for public events or retail or commercial sales. .

quote:

You are not totally correct about being allowed to cook at your house in WA state. If you live in a rural area you can according to WA state law have a commercial kitchen in your house as long as it is seperated completely from your residential kitchen, it does not even have to be in a separate building.

It doesn't have to be in a rural area. I have one of my commercial kitchens at my house (Wenatchee) as well. But, given what the OP stated, I wasn't incorrect at all. He cannot do food prep at his house in the way that he stated he wanted to. And I also suggested several times that he contact the local Health District so that he could get the low-down. I imagined that they would discuss how he would have to set up a commercial kitchen at home if he wanted to proceed with his plan.

quote:

I know this for a fact because I have a commercial BBQ kitchen in my house with all of the pemits required by both Clarke County building department and the Health Department. The process took me 4 months to get them though.

It took me nine months. And I used to work for the local HD. And I also have an existing restaurant-based kitchen.

I thought I would post how the banquet went. I took last Friday off work to get things started. The Eagles club let me in around 6:00 am and started by placing all 50 pounds of chicken thighs on pans and sprinkling CS Spicy Chicken Rub both sides. I used ½ oz apple wood and 1 oz cherry in the CS55 at 250 degrees each load. It took 2 loads to get all the chicken done at around 2 ½ to 3 hours each load. When the chicken reached 158 degrees I pulled each load and lightly basted each piece with a mixture of cherry brandy and honey just to give a slight sweet taste with the rub.

While the chicken was in the smoker I made a large tub of coleslaw and 5 gallons of BBQ beans. After the chicken was wrapped (plastic and tin foil) and cooling down I started the ribs, smoked 18 racks of short ribs (not the baby back ones) and that took 3 loads. I used 1 oz apple and 1 oz hickory each load, CS Rib rub at around 130 to 140 degrees. Each load took around 4 ½ to 5 hours and were literally ready to fall off the bone. The ribs were wrapped like the chicken and allowed to cool down. Both the chicken and ribs were placed in the Eagles large cooler (refrigerator) to keep for Saturday. Went home at 2:00 am (because they had to close the bar) and got some sleep.

On Saturday I went back to the Eagles and low and behold the overseer had a crew there to help me. So we made 10 gallons of garlic mashed potatoes (real ones not the flakes) and my famous garlic bread (9 loves of French bread). We put the chicken and ribs in the oven to heat up and when the ribs were hot we pulled them and cut into single bones for serving. We were ready to serve at 6:00 pm.

I am not sure how many we served (around 100) but gave each plate 3 bones of the ribs or 1 to 2 pieces of chicken depending upon how big the thighs were (it was either ribs or chicken, not both), a scoop of mashed potatoes, scoop of BBQ beans, coleslaw and a piece of garlic bread. I could not believe how much food this was on each plate. However very little food came back on the plates when they were finished and we had no food left over (I did not even get to have any). No meat what so ever came back and people were asking if they could buy some to take home.

I was scared that they would not like the chicken because I thought it was to strong but they raved about it. And the ribs; they wanted to know when I would do that again (NOT!). Although I had fun and it was an experience, it was a lot of work for one person and my hat really goes off to those who do this for a living. With my normal job and this event it was a bit much, so I spent Sunday just relaxing and doing absolutely nothing around the house but enjoyed the feeling of being able to help them out.

Gene

Great report Gene,

Glad you were able to pull it off!

Way to go, Gene, it sounds like you did a bang-up job.

Thanks guys. I think I will stay with my day job. However I did get asked out on a date, but I think it was because she thinks I can cook

quote:

Originally posted by GHB:
..... However I did get asked out on a date, but I think it was because she thinks I can cook

She just liked the way you smelled after exposure to the smoke