Earlier this year, my work approached me about smoking up some meat for a company baby-shower. How could I say no?! I love my job, coworkers, cooking and babies! As we started hammering out more and more of the details though, it dawned on me what a lift this was actually going to be. Yeah, I grill a lot for myself and family. And we have hosted numerous parties and board-game nights at our place where I've cooked for a dozen or so people. But here I was looking at cooking for over 20 people! Before I knew it I was on the line to smoke a few briskets and a whole turkey. I knew to do this, and to do it right, the planning and prep work was going to be extremely important.
With the desired meats and quantities figured out, I needed to nail down some more of the logistics. Let's see... it was going to be on a Friday, we wanted to be digging in by 1130AM-Noonish, I was going to have to smoke up everything at the office (there goes the home field advantage) .... and it was a SURPRISE baby-shower! The plot thickened.
Let's see here, a whole turkey (15#s give or take) needs about 4 hours at 300 degrees to smoke. Add 30 minutes to let the meat rest and set, 15 minutes to carve ... carry the two .... yeah, the bird needed to be in the smoker around 630AM. Cool, no biggie. But wait, beforehand I am going to need to get that bird early enough in the week so it can thaw safely and then be brined for at least 24 hours...
Brisket... brisket... well they need about 1.5 hours per pound at 225-250 degrees to get to around 190 degrees internally. If I'm doing 6 pound briskets then that is about a 9 hour smoke. Oh and 30 minutes to rest and set. And carve, which does take less time than the bird but oh wait... there's three of them! So yeah, they need to be in the smoker by about 2AM.
Ah pickle-shoes! I forgot about the whole setting everything up part. So I need to load the truck up with everything, drive to work, unload everything, get the smoke station set-up and then get the meats going by 2AM on Friday. Yup, I will be waking up Thursday night for this adventure.
So let's see, as far as what I will need for this:
The Meats
Cooking Devices (I'm looking at two smokers to handle this job)
Fuel (Wood Chips, Pellets, etc.)
Cooking and Carving Utensils
Rubbs and such (seasonings and other items)
Serving Trays and other misc. items
Better make a checklist... which is what I did!
This list, made this whole thing work. I made sure to write down every little thing I was going to need. There was no "run out to the store real quick" with this mission. I even made sure to list out what I needed to do for the different meats and noted what the desired internal temperature for each was going to be.
So part of the reason I am going over all of this in such detail is to help you plan for your own big BBQ. There is a lot to consider and think about when doing something like this. Now maybe you won't be doing two different kinds of meats, or doing a meat that takes such a long time or maybe you will even get to keep the home field advantage (all of which will save you time and effort) but you still need to consider prep time, cook time, carve time and make sure that happens in time for when you want to be eating.
My saving grace was the fact that the surprise was ruined before the event. This allowed me to bring the smokers, serving stuff and basically everything but the meats a day early. Which in turn allowed me a couple more hours of sleep before the big event. One thing I'd like to point out is the picture below, you will notice some tooth-picks taped to the tops of the Rubbs jars. Since I did three briskets, each with a different Rubb, I needed a way to keep track of what was on who. Using toothpicks in the tops of the brisket I "coded" each meat to their Rubb. This way when I pulled them off I knew that the one with one tooth-pick was Donovan's Beef and the one with two was Sedona Smoke and so on. This is a very easy and effective way to keep track of multiple seasoned meats (which is important especially if you are using a spicier one).
So, 115AM hits Friday morning. I'm up. Load the meats up and any other little last items. Head out. Get to the office before 2AM. Unload. Start setting everything up outside under some canopies because you know... its drizzling... and cold... Briskets got in late (250AM) but that might be OK. While they are going my attention turns to the bird. Rinse it off from the brine, use my lather-butter trick and then coat with Rubbs and a little canola oil. He can hang out in the fridge until it's time to go into the smoker. (Ya'll should really go back and read my previous turkey blog as it was basically my blue-print for this one as well.) Keep an eye on the wood chips for the brisket and spray with apple juice every hour or so. Hey before you know it, better fire up the Traeger for the bird who went in around 615AM. Now I'm watching pellets over here and chips over there. Time flies as I was having a blast posting this all on social media (we're on Facebook and Instagram). Birds done! Off it comes and sits for 30 minutes. Briskets done. Off they come to sit. 30 minutes is up, time to carve the bird. Bird is carved, time to carve the brisket.
Of course by this time people had showed up to the office and were more than happy to help taste-test the food and bring the trays in for me (what pals)! And sure enough we were eating and eating on time!
Was it worth it? Absolutely. A room full of great people enjoying good food is always worth any effort. Especially when people were going back for thirds!
So next time you're looking at throwing something like this together, I hope you refer back to this blog and it helps you prepare.
Until next time! Remember, Don't Beat Your Meat... RUBB That Chubb!
-Chubbs