Staging cook schedule and holding on the line

I don't have much experience holding brisket, but a couple of restaurants around here that serve it, wrap it with plastic and hold in their proofing oven/heated cabinet with varying degrees of success. It seems to hold up well the day of the cook, but I haven't had it on the second day where I felt it was suitable to serve. I would suggest this be one item you're willing to 86 as the day progresses unless you can stagger cook times.

Ribs can be handled much the same way as brisket, but I'm not sure I don't prefer to wrap them in slabs after smoking and refrigerate them before serving. Then reheat on the grill and sauce to order. This is how most chain stores handle ribs and it either works, or the public doesn't know the difference, you pick.

I would do chicken, turkey, and sausage the same way if I couldn't time my cooking to result in a boost of supply at high demand times. Chic and sausage both heat up well on the grill, and chicken can also be kept in the sauce for several hours if you choose to do a saucy BBQ chicken.

Pork loin I would only do if I could serve fresh from the smoker unless I planned to serve with some type of sauce.

Pork butts and shoulders can be held for several hours before pulling if needed. One restaurant I've worked with around here pulls all of their pork in the AM, sauces it, and stores it in the fridge in deep hotel pans(wrapped). They then use their steamer to reheat the still wrapped pan. This works well. Then any remainder is mixed 50/50 with fresh the next day for serving unless it can be used for brunswick stew or beans.

Brunswick stew is a great way to stretch the usefulness of a product since it can contain chicken, pulled pork or pork loin, and maybe even sausage in varying amounts so it can collect a lot of things that might otherwise go to waste. Even if you sell it at half price, it still makes a little money from what might have been lost food cost.

talk to john at cookshack, I belive they were going to start selling a new holding oven that keeps meat moist for hours. they had it at the CS cooking class, along with thier sales rep. It was really a nice set-up. C-VAP I think was the name.

Thanks guys, awesome feedback!!!

Hi everyone. First of all I want to thank all of you on this forum. I bought a sm 150 last spring and because of the information I have received from you all it has become an integral part of my business.

I own a tourism business which includes a dance barn and a saloon and every Saturday night this past Spring, Summer and Fall for either private or public events we served smoked pulled pork and sliced brisket. We found that if it was wrapped whole in plastic and foil that it would hold in the smoker for hours. We would pull or slice as needed in front of the customers who seemed to enjoy watching. We also found that it could be refrigerated or frozen whole and heated back up in the smoker and still maintain it's integrity. We never had complaints whether it was cooked that day or pulled out of the freezer and reheated a month after it was cooked, so you don't have to worry as much about waste if the place is empty instead of a line around the block. I haven't had the same experience with ribs or chicken so I only serve them to order at private events.

Keep in mind that I am not much more than a novice myself and there are many more real experts here but I wanted to pass along my experience based on what I learned from them.

Good luck