Social Saturday is BBQ Day V3 - How big is your meat?

[MASShole]

V2: http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/s...and-takin-pics.2736835/page-51#post-127095775

V1: went buhbye along with my eyesight due to the color scheme of this forum.

 

[Fuzzybabyducks]

version 1 is trolling me...

anyways my BBQ is under a foot of snow... I cant wait to start grilling again

 

[MASShole]

version 1 is trolling me...

anyways my BBQ is under a foot of snow... I cant wait to start grilling again

Probably because it was from the previous version of the forum's software? I dunno.

ETA: Just did a search and can't even find it anywhere. I'll remove it from the first post.

 

[LatFlare]

Tomahawk bruh checking in

 

[usmctanker242]

So I had to make a small lateral move from the pit I wanted to this pit due to timing issues. Here's what I've got in the works now... already paid for, just waiting for it to be built and delivered.

I'm pretty excited about it... my only concern is that the main smoking chamber is only 5 feet long, so I'm not too sure about the size of a hog I can get in there. I live in North Carolina so hogs are king out here, but I'm thinking I could probably get a 100Lb hog in there without too much trouble. Truth be told I don't even know how to cook a whole hog right now, so we'll see if I end up getting a lot of requests for them.

This pit is pretty great though... reverse flow offset, two door smoking chamber, and then the charcoal grill at the end. Great thing is the grill has a damper to the smoking chamber, so I can actually get some smoke on the meat as I'm grilling it. The vertical smoker on top of the firebox has a damper system as well, so it can act as a warming box or a smoking chamber.

Overall I'm pretty stoked... got my business all setup, just need my pit and the paperwork for the permits to be fully processed and I'll be ready to go. I even got my logo finished off, but waiting for the trademark to go through before I post it. haha

 

[usmctanker242]

Couple of pork butts I'm smoking for my friends birthday party today. Doing PigShots as well and I will post those here in a few minutes when I take them off my kamado. The picture here of the pork butts was after 4 hours on the pit, smoked with oak, and kept a temp pretty close to 250. Using the Thermoworks Smoke as my digital thermometer and pretty happy with it so far.

Edit: So this is the first time I decided not to spritz and I have to say I think it's looking much better without spritzing. There's no massive temperature drop due to me opening the door, no cold moisture going onto the meat, and I'm seeing a better color all around.

 

[Rob Battisti]

@usmctanker242 best of luck to you brother! I'm seriously considering going down that path as well next year. Living in jersey, we have a house on Long Beach island which has ZERO BBQ presence. I ran some numbers and a 16 week summer enterprise is entirely doable.

Doing a brisket flat tomorrow. I have to start posting pictures.

What type of business are you looking into? Catering? Sit down?

 

[usmctanker242]

@usmctanker242 best of luck to you brother! I'm seriously considering going down that path as well next year. Living in jersey, we have a house on Long Beach island which has ZERO BBQ presence. I ran some numbers and a 16 week summer enterprise is entirely doable.

Doing a brisket flat tomorrow. I have to start posting pictures.

What type of business are you looking into? Catering? Sit down?

Thanks man, appreciate it. I'm looking at catering / concession, so going to start with strictly catering and my real goal is to get on the USMC base up the road. On that particular base there is no BBQ presence and I think I could do very well setting up in a few different locations during lunch. I'm working on becoming a vendor and that's quite a bit of paperwork, so it's going to be a little bit of a longer process. Of course I'm also looking into convention / event concessions... anything to get my name out there and get paid to cook.

Before you get started just make sure you look into all of the fees and caveats. You likely won't be able to legally cook out of your house, so you'll need to rent a commercial kitchen to prepare all your meat. That's going to cost you, then of course you're looking at a pretty solid chunk of cash for liability insurance each month. It's a slow process getting everything together, the permits registered, etc, so if you're looking at doing it this summer you really should begin now. You can also knock out your health / hygiene course now, rather than later, which is a big help. I did ServSafe and that seems to be the industry standard... good thing is it's good for 3-5 years depending on your state, so doing it early isn't an issue.

Something that really expedited things for me was LegalZoom.com. I was having a tough time dealing with the Chamber of Commerce as they seemed very disorganized and not really aware of everything I needed. So after some frustration I checked out LegalZoom and they took all that frustration off my hands. For a flat fee they setup my business as an LLC, and are doing all of the permits / business licenses. So now I'm free up to do the menus, crunch the figures, etc.

Whoops... I see you said next year. Well, cool man, good luck. I'll keep posting on this forum so when I get mine up and running I'll kind of report back with some of the details... maybe through my trials and errors you all can gain some knowledge. haha

 

[Rob Battisti]

Appreciate the insight! Will keep you posted!

 

[usmctanker242]

Not really a big deal or anything, but I just got the deal of the century in pecan wood (for my area at least). Got a full cord of nice and seasoned pecan for $160... the guy who sold it to me owns a farm and a sawmill. I'm a repeat customer so he keeps on lowering the price, insane on his end, but good for me. I've seen nothing else in my 100 mile radius area that has a cord of pecan for less than $300.

Not the best stacking job in the world, but it was hot and muggy today and the heat was whipping my ass.

 

[Rob Battisti]

So I'm building a smoker. Will post updates once I make the purchase. Found these on Craigslist for 100 bucks a pop. If I hit a roadblock I'll scrap it. Really excited

 

[MASShole]

So I had to make a small lateral move from the pit I wanted to this pit due to timing issues. Here's what I've got in the works now... already paid for, just waiting for it to be built and delivered.

I'm pretty excited about it... my only concern is that the main smoking chamber is only 5 feet long, so I'm not too sure about the size of a hog I can get in there. I live in North Carolina so hogs are king out here, but I'm thinking I could probably get a 100Lb hog in there without too much trouble. Truth be told I don't even know how to cook a whole hog right now, so we'll see if I end up getting a lot of requests for them.

This pit is pretty great though... reverse flow offset, two door smoking chamber, and then the charcoal grill at the end. Great thing is the grill has a damper to the smoking chamber, so I can actually get some smoke on the meat as I'm grilling it. The vertical smoker on top of the firebox has a damper system as well, so it can act as a warming box or a smoking chamber.

Overall I'm pretty stoked... got my business all setup, just need my pit and the paperwork for the permits to be fully processed and I'll be ready to go. I even got my logo finished off, but waiting for the trademark to go through before I post it. haha

YOu should easily fit a 100lb hog in there. They aren't longer than 5 feet in general at that size.

For pigs, obviously you butterfly them, lay them flat, and you'll just have to have a nice mop brush so you can mop fast. It takes a lot less time than people think to do a whole hog.

It's pretty easy setting up a business, to be honest. I'm glad you went legalzoom.com if you didn't know what to do. Now you just have to figure out pricing. In a restaurant, food costs are generally 25-30% of price (i.e. $10 sandwich costs $3ish).

If I was you, I'd have a simple menu of just 3 meats to start: brisket, pork, ribs
Plus sides that we already discussed. You could make it a la carte, or platter style, etc.

Looking forward to your progress, man.


Just thought of an idea: chicken wings for tailgating. You'd make a killing at college games in the south, if you're near a good school.

 

[usmctanker242]

YOu should easily fit a 100lb hog in there. They aren't longer than 5 feet in general at that size.

For pigs, obviously you butterfly them, lay them flat, and you'll just have to have a nice mop brush so you can mop fast. It takes a lot less time than people think to do a whole hog.

It's pretty easy setting up a business, to be honest. I'm glad you went legalzoom.com if you didn't know what to do. Now you just have to figure out pricing. In a restaurant, food costs are generally 25-30% of price (i.e. $10 sandwich costs $3ish).

If I was you, I'd have a simple menu of just 3 meats to start: brisket, pork, ribs
Plus sides that we already discussed. You could make it a la carte, or platter style, etc.

Looking forward to your progress, man.


Just thought of an idea: chicken wings for tailgating. You'd make a killing at college games in the south, if you're near a good school.

Thanks for the tips man... LegalZoom was pretty simple though they are a bit pricey. Oh well, better to have it done professionally than to have me guessing and screwing things up. But yes, you are correct, now that I know better, it's not as hard or as daunting as I had initially expected.

I agree with you about a menu and I'm keeping it pretty simple : Brisket slices and burnt ends, pulled pork, and chicken. I'm debating doing ribs because my main audience is going to be lunch and I'm dealing with the military, so a half rack of ribs I would need to charge at least $10 to make any kind of profit. And that's a bit high to ask some young E-1 or E-3 to pay for lunch. Everything else I can do 1/4 Lb servings of meat, plus 2 sides (1/4 pint), and I can come in at exactly $8 and be doing pretty well. But ribs I would have to charge too much for a lunch thing, though I might try them out for an event and see how well they are received.

I'm actually smoking a brisket tonight / tomorrow morning for my wife's staff for lunch, and I'm going to be testing out my corn bread, and I'm doing two different styles of baked beans to get some feedback.

I'm doing Tuffy Stone's Cool Smoke BBQ class here in a few weeks, then I'm heading to Dallas, TX for a 4 day BBQ Convention :
http://www.iambbq2017.com/
Some really good panels there which are mostly about BBQ as a business and it's a really good place to start some networking. My new smoker is scheduled to be shipped immediately after I return from that convention, so by May I will have everything I need to be legal!

 

[Rob Battisti]

Found this trailer on Craigslist. Perfect for what I'm looking for.

 

[HOV]

I don't know how to bbq that well...just came in to see how big everyones meat is

 

[Rob Battisti]

Thanks for the tips man... LegalZoom was pretty simple though they are a bit pricey. Oh well, better to have it done professionally than to have me guessing and screwing things up. But yes, you are correct, now that I know better, it's not as hard or as daunting as I had initially expected.

I agree with you about a menu and I'm keeping it pretty simple : Brisket slices and burnt ends, pulled pork, and chicken. I'm debating doing ribs because my main audience is going to be lunch and I'm dealing with the military, so a half rack of ribs I would need to charge at least $10 to make any kind of profit. And that's a bit high to ask some young E-1 or E-3 to pay for lunch. Everything else I can do 1/4 Lb servings of meat, plus 2 sides (1/4 pint), and I can come in at exactly $8 and be doing pretty well. But ribs I would have to charge too much for a lunch thing, though I might try them out for an event and see how well they are received.

I'm actually smoking a brisket tonight / tomorrow morning for my wife's staff for lunch, and I'm going to be testing out my corn bread, and I'm doing two different styles of baked beans to get some feedback.

I'm doing Tuffy Stone's Cool Smoke BBQ class here in a few weeks, then I'm heading to Dallas, TX for a 4 day BBQ Convention :
http://www.iambbq2017.com/
Some really good panels there which are mostly about BBQ as a business and it's a really good place to start some networking. My new smoker is scheduled to be shipped immediately after I return from that convention, so by May I will have everything I need to be legal!

That's awesome man! I'm doing Myron Mixons class in April at his house.

 

[pinger]

It was 42 Celsius here on Sunday. You better believe we got our BBQ on.

 

[usmctanker242]

That's awesome man! I'm doing Myron Mixons class in April at his house.

LMAO... I was about to do that same class. I made the choice to go with Tuffy's class because it's a few hundred miles closer. I actually got into BBQ by reading Myron's books, so I figured another perspective would be a good thing.

Have fun at the class man, sounds like it's a great time and Myron really comes off as great teacher. Here's a video of him teaching at a competition last year... really shows how he breaks things down and makes them easy to understand.

 

[Rob Battisti]

LMAO... I was about to do that same class. I made the choice to go with Tuffy's class because it's a few hundred miles closer. I actually going to BBQ by reading Myron's books, so I figured another perspective would be a good thing.

Have fun at the class man, sounds like it's a great time and Myron really comes off as great teacher. Here's a video of him teaching at a competition last year... really shows how he breaks things down and makes them easy to understand.

I'll let you know how it is. Overall, I'm a little skeptical of his higher temp approach, but I'm excited to go.

Hopefully Tuffy's is great too!

 

[usmctanker242]

I'll let you know how it is. Overall, I'm a little skeptical of his higher temp approach, but I'm excited to go.

Hopefully Tuffy's is great too!

Hot and fast really works well when combined with an injection and a moist cooking environment. It shocked the hell out of me too, but to this day my best brisket is when I cook them hot and fast. I inject with some beef stock / beef base and let it marinate for about 12 hours, then right into a 325F smoker for about 2.5 hours. Then I'll place the brisket in a foil pan and cover the pan with foil, and right back into the smoker (or oven) until I hit 205F in the thickest part of the point. I'll wrap the whole pan in a few towels and then stuff it in a cooler (no ice) for about 2-4 hours. Absolutely the most tender and juiciest brisket.