Question regarding FEC2000/Butts/Baby Backs!

FEC2000?

quote:

Originally posted by Todd G.:
FEC2000?

Previous model number for the 750

Soul, sounds like you haven't cooked much on what we now call a 750, certainly not in quantity. I've cooked a number of times on a 750, but we only filled it with 55 briskets when we did.

Basically it's renumbered a 750 because that's a great estimate of how much meat (weight) it can do.

Unfortunately I have more questions than answers right now.

I'll move this down to the Pros forum because you're asking about quantities and they'll be the ones that have a large FE and have catered.

for the 2nd event, are you trying to serve a certain about of people or sell as many whole butts (cooked) as you can? You can always do them in batches to sell more (are you selling them hot, chilled, how?) What if you don't sell out? Yes you can double rack them, but it will depend on vertical size of the lower rack if you have airflow issues (size them and put smaller butts on the bottom shelves and give yourself more airspace).

for the 1st event, why not go with St. Louis? The price is cheap than BB's and not sure why you think BB's are better for children. For price, st. louis are great. I'd suggest you cook what you know too, timing will be different for the BB's. If you go with one rib per person (not a good way to do it) and you get 12/13 ribs per slab, you can do the match. Who's paying for the ribs at the church event and are you doing this for free or trying to make money?

SmokinOkie:

You are correct in that I haven't yet cooked with the 2000 filled to capacity. I am not a caterer or a "paid professional." I purchased the 2000 from a BBQ restaurant that was going out of business because I love to volunteer my time to cook for large events such as church functions and fundraisers, and also for holidays and special events. I'm not doing any of this for profit.

To be a little more specific about the 2nd event, I am cooking for a youth group that is trying to raise funds for a youth mission trip. They are pre-selling whole butts to church members, and I have them hooked up with a supplier who will sell them the meat for $.95/lb. We will cook overnight on a Friday night and have people pick them up at an appointed time on Saturday morning (Father's Day weekend). We'll have the butts wrapped in foil, bagged, and ready for pickup, and we won't have to refrigerate them between cooking and pickup. I will be surprised if they don't sell 60-80 butts, but regardless I would like to cook a full load and freeze the unused portion, either for later use or for them to sell to "straglers." I'm just trying to figure out about how many butts I can cook at one time so I know how many to tell them to order. I've never cooked more than 30-35 butts at once on my 2000, so I've never had to double rack them.

My preference would be to do St. Louis ribs for the first event, but there was some concern over whether or not small children would be able to manage them (this event is a kickoff meal for Vacation Bible School at church). I wouldn't personally give $.15 for all the baby backs in the world, but I'm trying to make a bunch of little kids happy campers, so I don't want my own preference to cloud what might be best for the event. We will have about 300 kids and 200 adults for this event. I will have the final say in what kind of ribs we cook, but the cost of the ribs has been covered by donations. Of course, I'm not seeking any reimbursement--just a bunch of smiling faces!

Thanks again for your help.

PB:

When you've cooked butts, how many have you put on one rack. I'm thinking up to 10 (depending on size/shape) so with ten racks, that could be as many as 100. I'd get with the distributor and ask them for the smallest cases they have, not the monster cases where the PB are 9 or 10 lbs each.

You will have to think food safety. If you're cooking them, wrap, etc and they sit around, you're risking something. I'd cooked them early, cool them and give them instructions for pre heating. I would DEFINITELY as for pre-orders. You could either sell more than you can cook in one batch OR you'll have 40 left over. I've seen these done, but only by pre-sales

RIBS:
For the ribs, I've NEVER heard someone order BB so little kids could eat them. New on on me. And a trimmed St. Louis isn't much different. The real key for the kids will be that it's room temp, not hot out of the smoker, get them off and cooling so they can handle. The challenge is how to break up the 300 kids (one rib per or two?) and the 200 adults (two ribs or three). With waste, let's say you average 11 ribs per slab, 10 per is easier to calculate. That means at least 30 or 60 racks for kids and 40 racks or 80 for the adults. Number really goes up so the estimate is important. So, minimum of 70 racks for 500 people. Make SURE that's a real #, not just a wish. I'd certainly cook 2 batches, wrap the first in foil and put in coolers to stay warm. They'll be too hot to touch 4 hours later. Hope you have a lot of help, that's a lot of ribs.

Okay Soul Hunter. Do what Smokin' says.

This will be a learning experience for you. This might turn out like one of those old Marine Corp. commercials where they make men out of boys.

This amount of volume will mean a lot of work. It will cease to be fun after the first 4-5 hours. Less if you don't have help.

You MUST presale, then cook about 10-20% extra for stragglers. If you run out great! I do a lot of fundraising and churches are full of optimistic people that won't be around if you're sitting on 200# of extra meat at the end of an event.

As far as the butts are concerned, it sounds like you can get all you'll need on one load. I would schedule a pickup window of no more than 2 hours(1 being even better) and pull directly from the hot smoker, wrap, and deliver to buyer. If you decide to cook earlier and then have to cool, you'll need serious refrigeration to cool that much meat. Think walk in cooler type. Most churches don't have this level of equipment.

Also, check your prices on meat. I don't know where you're located, but I can buy butts in case lots for $.90 per pound as of today from Sam's club or BJ's Wholesale in NC. That's about $.20 per pound less than their marked individual prices.

A far as wrapping a load of ribs, I would disagree with Smokin a bit. I would get a 120qt cooler and pull the first batch off and place directly in the cooler with about 5 gallons of heated sauce. Then post a guard to keep it closed until the next batch is ready to come off. 40 racks of ribs in a closed cooler will still be too hot to touch 5 hours later, and you avoid the tedious wrapping. Pull ribs about 85-90% done because they'll cook a bit more in the cooler, and you don't want them falling apart.

EDIT: Not to seem too cynical, but I can't overstate how important it is to confirm and verify ACTUAL presale numbers. I don't want to use the term "lie", but lets say I have been misinformed on more than one occasion as to the number of presales, sometimes by a factor of 10x. If all they've presold is 30 butts, cooking 150, or even a 100, is out of control wishful thinking and wasteful. You need to see proof of presales and then you decide how much extra to cook.

EDIT #2: I just re-read Smokin's last paragraph and it sounds like he has been the victim of wishful thinking before also. Church groups tend to think backwards from "We need $2000 dollars for our youth group, to we'll make $20 per butt sold, to we'll sell 100 butts and that will solve our problem". This cook it and they will come mentality is good for churches and bad for caterers.

Official answer for the 750:

It will hold 8 St. Louis Style ribs per shelf for a total of 120 slabs. Baby Backs are 12 per shelf for a total of 180 slabs.

You can put 9 butts on each rack for a total of 90 butts. With an average weight of 8 pounds that is 720 pounds of butts.

Thanks for all the input, guys. Fortunately this isn't my first large event, only my first large one with the FEC 2000. I've done three wild game feasts with 600-800 in attendance, but all the food didn't come off the smoker. I also cooked for this event last year and did butts and a whole hog, but I didn't have my 2000 then. We were up every 45 minutes throughout the night to feed the smokers with more wood and charcoal, so I understand what it is like to cross the fun / work threshold!

I appreciate the food safety tips. For the butts I plan on timing it so that they are done within a couple of hours of the pickup time. I will keep them over 140 by using the "hold" feature on my IQ4, and/or wrap them with foil and keep them warm in a large cooler until the pickup time. I like the idea of a 1 hour pickup window.

Regarding the ribs, I think thou hast persuaded me to go back to my favored St. Louis style--not only will they be better, I think I will get more lbs. of meat per square inch of grill space with the St. Louis over baby backs.

The church in question is my own church and the staff member in charge is my good friend, so I can keep close tabs on the pre-sales. I'm not too worried about overage because I would gladly take the extras for my own personal use.

I think I would plan on 2 bones per child, 4 bones per adult. 500 in attendance should be close, because we registered 487 last year at this event. That means 1400 bones, or 140 slabs. Can I do 140 slabs of St. Louis style ribs in one load on the 2000, or will I have to double batch it?

I plan on having a small army to help prep the ribs, and 4-6 to help me with the actual cooking process. The youth group (under my supervision) is going to prep the butts as their contribution to the fundraising process. They will also be responsible for bagging the butts and giving them out during the distribution. Fortunately our church has a commercial kitchen with walk in cooler that is health department inspected.

Thanks again for your help!

quote:

I think I would plan on 2 bones per child, 4 bones per adult. 500 in attendance should be close, because we registered 487 last year at this event. That means 1400 bones, or 140 slabs. Can I do 140 slabs of St. Louis style ribs in one load on the 2000, or will I have to double batch it?

SmokinOkie, you are so good you anticipated my question while I was writing it! Sorry I didn't see your post before I hit the "Post Now" button!

quote:

Originally posted by SoulHunter:
Thanks for all the input, guys. Fortunately this isn't my first large event, only my first large one with the FEC 2000. I've done three wild game feasts with 600-800 in attendance, but all the food didn't come off the smoker. I also cooked for this event last year and did butts and a whole hog, but I didn't have my 2000 then. We were up every 45 minutes throughout the night to feed the smokers with more wood and charcoal, so I understand what it is like to cross the fun / work threshold!

I appreciate the food safety tips. For the butts I plan on timing it so that they are done within a couple of hours of the pickup time. I will keep them over 140 by using the "hold" feature on my IQ4, and/or wrap them with foil and keep them warm in a large cooler until the pickup time. I like the idea of a 1 hour pickup window.

Regarding the ribs, I think thou hast persuaded me to go back to my favored St. Louis style--not only will they be better, I think I will get more lbs. of meat per square inch of grill space with the St. Louis over baby backs.

The church in question is my own church and the staff member in charge is my good friend, so I can keep close tabs on the pre-sales. I'm not too worried about overage because I would gladly take the extras for my own personal use.

I think I would plan on 2 bones per child, 4 bones per adult. 500 in attendance should be close, because we registered 487 last year at this event. That means 1400 bones, or 140 slabs. Can I do 140 slabs of St. Louis style ribs in one load on the 2000, or will I have to double batch it?

I plan on having a small army to help prep the ribs, and 4-6 to help me with the actual cooking process. The youth group (under my supervision) is going to prep the butts as their contribution to the fundraising process. They will also be responsible for bagging the butts and giving them out during the distribution. Fortunately our church has a commercial kitchen with walk in cooler that is health department inspected.

Thanks again for your help!

Well, you didn't tell us all that. We thought you were one of those guys with more money than sense that thought cooking for a crowd would be fun. We were trying to save you from yourself.

But it sounds like you have a good handle on things and a well equipped facility to work from, so good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd G.:
Well, you didn't tell us all that. We thought you were one of those guys with more money than sense that thought cooking for a crowd would be fun. We were trying to save you from yourself.

But it sounds like you have a good handle on things and a well equipped facility to work from, so good luck.

I apologize--I wasn't very clear in my initial email. Of course, I am still a neophyte compared to most of you guys!

quote:

Originally posted by SoulHunter:
I will keep them over 140 by using the "hold" feature on my IQ4, and/or wrap them with foil and keep them warm in a large cooler until the pickup time.

Probably going to have to go with the cooler. That many butts, some will come off before others, so it's tough to use the hold feature for a FULL load of PB's.

Hey Guys,

Just an update: we have 57 butts pre-sold, and still have two more weeks of selling to go!