Rib Holding Question

you are real close on this one since the old rule of thumb was only 3 days for cooked meat under refrigeration after that freezing was required. the best advice that i could offer is (since you customer is traveling and can't get the food after wednesday) as soon as your ribs are done chill them as fast as you can to below 41 degrees. then i would simply wrap the chilled ribs in film and then wrap that in heavy gauge foil. i would advise my customer to keep them chilled in an ice chest until his refrig was at operating temperature.
to reheat you have a couple of choices leave the foil on and reheat in a 350 degree oven as this will act as a steam chamber with the film still on under the foil.
or you could individually heat them in a microwave with only the film left on for maybe 2 or 3 mins.
main thing is chill them as fast as you can,wrap each slab individually and warn the customer they must be kept at all times under 41 degrees until they are reheated.
hope this helps,
jack
ps. are you sure there is no way your customer can take delievery on thursday or even friday? that would give you a safety margin

I wish he could take delivery later, but he is leaving thursday morning before the sun comes up. I may talk him out of ribs and into something else... Thank you for the help.

I guess you don't have a vac system?

That would be the easiest.

Especially if he gets delayed for any reason.

Freeze and drop bags in boiling water.

An ice chest with something to keep the wrapped slabs off the bottom.. plenty of ice and about a 2# block of dry ice will keep them good and cold for quite a few days.

Thanks for the information. Will chicken travel any better or is the time between cooking and eating just too long. I figure that I can cook on Wednesday afternoon, chill immediately and they eat on Saturday.... How would freezing a pan of cooked barbecued boneless breasts do reheated?

If you follow Jack's advice you won't have any problem. I just returned from a catering job on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Western Utah and did exactly what Jack suggests with ribs that I cooked off four days before the event. The only thing that I did differently was to put the cooked ribs in a Cambro (a commercial ice chest) with 5 lbs. of dry ice which froze them solid. The bonus was that, when reheated, they were better than the sample I tasted right out of the smoker. The film wrap is important! I did the same thing with two 16 Lbs. shoulder clods but Tom is right too..if you are going to be doing this on a regular basis get a vac sealer. It will make life easier.
CB