Catering food

[Paulie Walnuts 440]

Hey I was planning on bringing pulled pork to work as well as chicken wings and was thinking i can heat it up in the oven before hand and then bring it in (storing in tin pans) or Maybe even buying those sternos and heating the food up there . any ideas ?

 

[smokerjim]

how long will food be sitting in tins before eating, when i go to parties i heat in the tins in oven then cover with old news papers top and bottom or some towels to hold heat in. this holds the heat in pretty good, you'll have an hour or two. never liked those sternos , they may keep things warm but not sure how they are at actually heating things up. i guess if ya put enough of them under each pan they would do the trick.

 

[Paulie Walnuts 440]

Well i start work at 3PM and leave normally around 2pm for a 20 or so minute commute. The food would be sitting in the tins for probably like 30 minutes before I actually serve it. So i can always start heating the food up around 1 or so and once I get ready to leave I'll lay a large towel down on the bottom of the tins and then another large towel to wrap them in.

 

[krj]

I recommend not trying to heat food with sterno, it'll take forever as they are meant to keep things warm. Will people be eating at 3 or will it be longer? Also, how much food are we talking?

If it's not a ton of food, I'd heat it to serving temp toss it in a towel lined cooler and take it that way. It should stay warm enough for a couple hours.

 

[kilo charlie]

If you have a large cooler that your pans will fit in, heat the food up in the oven prior to leaving and wrap them in towels and put in the cooler. It'll hold the heat until you get to work.

 

[Paulie Walnuts 440]

Id say around 3pm I will serve the food , roughly like 15 lbs of pulled pork and maybe like 30 or 40 wings (nothing to much but enough to feed the squad) I do have a large cooler i can put a towel in the bottom then wrap another towel on top to keep warm..ive done that before when I've smoked brisket before..

 

[krj]

Yea for that small amount I'd just do the cooler. If you want to extend your heat a little further you can also pre-warm your cooler with hot water that way your panned food isn't going into a room temp environment.

 

[Hamdrew]

krj is right about not using sternos to heat them up.

Do you have a vacuum sealer? Heat them at home, then throw them sealed in a cooler with hot water and cover the cooler with towels. It should only lose a couple degrees per hour.

 

[kilo charlie]

A less messy version to filling the cooler with hot water is to put the towels in the dryer prior to using.

 

[Paulie Walnuts 440]

Awesome thanks for all the tips everyone

 

[Hamdrew]

A less messy version to filling the cooler with hot water is to put the towels in the dryer prior to using.

The purpose of using water is how much heat it retains (i.e. much more than heated towels). Whether or not it's needed of course depends on how long he will need to keep it heated.

 

[pineywoods]

If your talking around 30-45 minutes I'd agree with the people saying warm dry cooler with some towels on the bottom and over the trays of food. In that short of a time your not going to loose much heat at all and everything should still be plenty hot

 

[Paulie Walnuts 440]

Sounds good everyone I'll keep you posted next week how it goes. Gonna do a basic salt and black pepper pork shoulder with two types of sauces..a Carolina style and a regular tomato based sauce. Red oak and cherry smoked.