Pulled Pork Portions ?

[Cliff H.]

I know there are threads on this and even a chart that I can't pull up.

I have have a Church event coming up in a couple of weeks that I have been asked to cook for.

I plan to produce enough pulled pork to feed 80-100 people. I will have to transport the finished product from Jonesboro to Nashville and then re-heat one or two days later.

More teenage boys and girls than adults but more people than I have ever had to cook for.

There won't be a lot of sides. Maybe chips. This will be the only meat.

The questions are:

How many butts ? ( What is a good ratio )

I am going to vac seal so is there a need to freeze or just keep on ice until heated?

Boil the bag or put in covered pans for heating in an oven ?

This statement is a thread all by itself but I am really considering foiling early to soften the bark for people who may think that the bark is the " burned part". Comments?

[Pigs On The Wing BBQ]

I always go with 4oz per person and figure I can get close to 25 servings to a butt. I do the reheat in simmering water with the pulled pork in 5lb food saver bags. Works for me. Good luck and have fun.

[SoEzzy]

100 x 4 Oz = 400 Oz or 25 lbs cooked meat, roughly 50 lbs uncooked meat.
100 x 5.33 = 533 Oz or 33.33 lbs cooked meat, roughly 67 lbs uncooked meat.

So assuming all butts weigh 8 lbs, then somewhere between 7 and 9 butts will put you in the ball park.

If it is two days or less then vacpaced and refrigerated, if more than that I'd freeze it, the same if you go with foil pans full of meat.

If you vacpac it, then simmer not boil to re-heat, if you go with foil pans, cover them with a foil lid and re-heat with a little Apple Juice at 250 for an hour to an hour and a half.

The main things to remember about the whole process is to minimize the time in the 40 - 140 danger zone, as you pull the pork, spread it out in as thin a layer as you can to allow it to cool as rapidly as possible to 70 F or below, the thinner you layer it the quicker it cools, you can even bag it thinly and put it on ice in a cooler.

Once below 70 F you can either bag into larger bags or put into foil pans and then get it down below 40 F as soon as you can, to give you the best practice for extending it's life by minimizing the time in the danger zone.

If you want to speed things up, give the butts 4 or 5 hours of smoke, then foil for the whole of the rest of the time, once you rest them, save the juice that ends up in the foil, pull them down to thin strands, cool, chill, pan or vacpac, refrigerate or freeze.

Put the juice from all the foil packages into a pan, bring to a boil then allow to cool, as it cools it will separate into juice at the bottom and fat at the top, lift off the fat cap and add the juice back to the meat with about ½ as much apple juice as meat juice.

Take a shaker of your rub along with you and after the meat warms up, shake a thin cover of the rub over it, and turn it in with a couple of spoons or your hands if you're quick, give another light dusting and turn that in too!

When you say you can't pull up the chart, does that mean you can't find it or it won't open for you?

[Cliff H.]

I don't have excel and the converted chart was not complete.

Thanks for the info.

[wittdog]

Looks like you are going to have to build a couple more UDS

[SoEzzy]

Originally Posted by Cliff H.

I don't have excel and the converted chart was not complete.

Thanks for the info.

There are links on the same thread for "Open office" a freebie office suite, you can use instead of Microsoft Office, download that too, then open the .xls with "Open Office Calc". Open Office

This will put it on your computer for when you need it.

Catering Planner

[wittdog]

Thanks SoEzzy....I need a program like that..both of em.

[SoEzzy]

You're welcome to mine, and as Sun Systems make the other one available as a freebie, I must assume you're welcome to that one too!