Smoking for our Wedding

[briggy]

Long time no post, finally warm weather again.  We are getting married in July and I'm smoking most everything in advance and turning everything over to a chef friend for final prep.  Here is the plan, partially done to date.  I will post further as we complete this out and let everyone know how it turns out:

14lbs smoke cheeses

4 packer briskets

4 pork shoulders

8 roasting chickens

TBD peach baked beans

TBD mac & cheese

TBD meatballs

TBD salad

TBD coleslaw

Numerous other items for the meal

Here was the cheese smoke now vac packed and resting in the reefer:

Pre-smoke:

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

Post-smoke w/Pitmaster's Choice:

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

Vac packed and to the reefer!

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

Starting with briskets first.  Four prime grade from Costco smoked with hickory and cherry, flats will be sliced and points pulled.  I am only taking flats to 175 and points to 185 as they will need a reheat:

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

Moving on to the pork shoulders today, 4 of them at 8 pounds a piece.  These will be pulled, vac packed and froze.  The briskets above were frozen whole.  Pork will be smoked with Pecan and Apple.

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

Four pork butts in progress.   Chicken coming up with Chef JimmyJ's brine:

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• briggy
• May 28, 2016

Still a long way to go, any tips/tricks would be appreciated!

 

[b-one]

I hope it all goes well! Glad to see you have someone else dealing with the day of!! I got lucky and was givin a free hog roast,friends of our family owned land a farmer used! We just did turkey taters and some kind of veggie. One of my groomsman and myself did the fruit and cheese trays for apps and my job covered the bar bill! Let's just say I made out on the event with little cost!Thumbs Up

 

[briggy]

I hope it all goes well! Glad to see you have someone else dealing with the day of!! I got lucky and was givin a free hog roast,friends of our family owned land a farmer used! We just did turkey taters and some kind of veggie. One of my groomsman and myself did the fruit and cheese trays for apps and my job covered the bar bill! Let's just say I made out on the event with little cost!

Thanks B!  I'm sure it will be fine.  I find stressing over things will just make it worse, plenty of time to prepare.  Pretty sure I'm not making out quite like you did!    

 

[SmokinAl]

Wow this sounds like your gonna have a fantastic wedding.

Congrats to you & the bride!

Al

 

[nsoutdoorsman1]

No tips but mann!looking good so far and congratulations:)

 

[briggy]

No tips but mann!looking good so far and congratulations:)

Appreciate it, we're getting there!

 
Wow this sounds like your gonna have a fantastic wedding.

Congrats to you & the bride!

Al

Thank you Al, much appreciated!

 

[briggy]

Here is where we stand today:

Here is the pulled pork from last night, ended up with 18.5#:

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

Two chickens fresh out of Jimmy J's brine with pellicle formed with Kevin's fan drying method:

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

Brushed with EVOO and used Chef Jimmy J's rub:

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

They just went on the smoker at 225 with an Apple/Cherry mix.   We also have two trays of peach baked beans going in the conventional oven.  I'll have to get photos of those later.

 

[briggy]

Here is a question for you all.  I wanted to offer a variety of sauces at the wedding as we'll have a few people from around the country.  I was thinking of using Jeff's base to make a medium to spicy option, then another tomato based that would be more of a sweet option and finally a Carolina option.

Any thoughts and/or recommendations on recipes?

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Alabama white sauce is a good option for chicken.

 

[briggy]

Alabama white sauce is a good option for chicken.

Now that I will have to look into, never tried that one.  Thanks DS!

 

[briggy]

Here is where I am leaving off for today.  Two chickens are done and the first batch of peach baked beans are done.

Here are the chickens at 150 off the smoker.  Normally I would have left them on the smoker, but I wanted to chop the skin into finer pieces in the pulled chicken for the wedding.  Color looked great on the smoker, but wanted a little crisper.

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

On to the summit with indirect and the infrared going initially.  The summit was around 500 with infrared and two burners, just under 400 after I turned infrared off after the first few minutes.

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

Neglected to take a pulled pic before bagging, will do so next time.  We got 6 pounds pulled out of 2 chickens.

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

Two trays of peach baked beans from today:

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• briggy
• May 29, 2016

In advance of Memorial Day, thank you to all veterans!   

 

[briggy]

Meatballs today for apps and we have another batch of baked beans going.  We got around 160 meatballs out of this batch.  This will be it for the weekend, going to do some traditional steaks tonight and have to travel the rest of the week.  Have a great Memorial Day!

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• briggy
• May 30, 2016

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• briggy
• May 30, 2016

 

[pc farmer]

WOW.   That's a lot of cooking.

Looks great thou.

Following along.

 

[briggy]

 
WOW.   That's a lot of cooking.

Looks great thou.

Following along.

Trying for a lot now so it is only a little when we get closer to the date.  We're running out of freezer space - might just have to pull something out to actually eat!

 

[sfprankster]

Congratz on the wedding!!! 

Everything looks amazing!!!

 

[briggy]

 
Congratz on the wedding!!! 

Everything looks amazing!!!

Thank you prankster!

 

[briggy]

Quick update as I haven't posted in some time - we are down to crunch time as the wedding is on Saturday.  I took the rest of the week off so decided to do one final packer brisket and Chef JimmyJ's Au Jus for the reheat.  Here is what the final menu will look like on Saturday:

Appetizers

14lbs smoked cheeses (Pepper Jack, Colby Jack, Medium Cheddar, White Cheddar)

Variety of crackers

14lbs of meatballs

Veggie Trays (Friend is making these)

Fruit Trays (Friend is making these)

Main Course

Garden salad (Friend is making)

Vinegar slaw (Friend using my recipe - 13.5 heads of cabbage with 9 green and 4.5 red)

19lbs of sliced brisket

13lbs of pulled brisket

19lbs of pulled pork

17lbs of pulled chicken

57lbs of peach baked beans (way too many)

Sqwib's Mac & Cheese scaled for 90 (making tomorrow)

Homemade Dressings

Ranch

Blue Cheese

Italian

Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette

Homemade Sauces

Kansas City Bold (version of Jeff's)

Carolina Honey

Carolina Mustard

Alabama White

Quick look at the brisket point and au jus!

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• briggy
• Jul 20, 2016

The countdown is on!

 

[briggy]

Well the wedding food was a huge hit, needless to say I didn't have time for pics.  Our photographer says 30 days on our photos so I will see if she got any of the setup.  The smoked cheeses and SQWIB's mac & cheese received rave reviews!  Glad the crazy busy schedule is behind us but it was a great day!

 

[betaboy]

Congrats, for the wedding and the food!! From the looks of it you have a keeper if she's letting you spend that kind of time at the smoker! :D Everything looks awesome, lots of work in that meal!!

 

[briggy]

 
Congrats, for the wedding and the food!! From the looks of it you have a keeper if she's letting you spend that kind of time at the smoker! :D Everything looks awesome, lots of work in that meal!!

Sorry for the delay Betaboy, thanks for the kind words!  Yep, she's a keeper!