Cooking for a family reunion
 

This weekend, my mother's family is having a long-overdue reunion. The
luncheon will be "pot-luck smorgasbord" style, and I plan to cook some
ribs as our contribution. I have a couple of questions for those of you
who have some experience in cooking for a crowd...

First of all, I plan to actually cook the ribs Friday evening,
refrigerate them overnight, and re-heat them in the smoker Saturday
morning. (It's a 2-1/2 hour drive to the state park where the reunion
is being held, so it would be impractical to try to get there early
enough to cook them on site.) Should I wrap them in f*il to re-heat
them or not? Any other suggestions?

Secondly, the best "guesstimate" I've been able to come up with is that
there will be about 35-40 people there, including children. Since I'm
cooking these ribs as just another entrée and not as the "main course",
how many slabs should I plan for? I'm figuring that two ribs per person
should be about average, which would mean about 6 slabs. Does this
sound like enough, or should I plan for more? (I would rather have some
ribs left over to send home with my daughters than to run the risk of
having someone go without. ;)

Lastly, while I think that I can fit 6 slabs of ribs in the ECB, I've
found that our local Home Depot does have rib racks, which would allow
me to set the ribs on the grills vertically. Do any of you use rib
racks, and, if so, what are your results?

Thanks in advance for your help with this project!

Stan Marks

Pass on the ribs pal. Get some fried chicken and let the party begin!
Yahoooooooooooooooooooooooooo


"Stan Marks" > wrote in message
...
> This weekend, my mother's family is having a long-overdue reunion. The
> luncheon will be "pot-luck smorgasbord" style, and I plan to cook some
> ribs as our contribution. I have a couple of questions for those of you
> who have some experience in cooking for a crowd...
>
> First of all, I plan to actually cook the ribs Friday evening,
> refrigerate them overnight, and re-heat them in the smoker Saturday
> morning. (It's a 2-1/2 hour drive to the state park where the reunion
> is being held, so it would be impractical to try to get there early
> enough to cook them on site.) Should I wrap them in f*il to re-heat
> them or not? Any other suggestions?
>
> Secondly, the best "guesstimate" I've been able to come up with is that
> there will be about 35-40 people there, including children. Since I'm
> cooking these ribs as just another entrée and not as the "main course",
> how many slabs should I plan for? I'm figuring that two ribs per person
> should be about average, which would mean about 6 slabs. Does this
> sound like enough, or should I plan for more? (I would rather have some
> ribs left over to send home with my daughters than to run the risk of
> having someone go without. ;)
>
> Lastly, while I think that I can fit 6 slabs of ribs in the ECB, I've
> found that our local Home Depot does have rib racks, which would allow
> me to set the ribs on the grills vertically. Do any of you use rib
> racks, and, if so, what are your results?
>
> Thanks in advance for your help with this project!
>
> Stan Marks

>various snips>
>This weekend, my mother's family is having a long-overdue reunion.
>there will be about 35-40 people there, including children.
>I'm figuring that two ribs per person should be about average.
>I would rather have some ribs left over.
>Do any of you use rib racks, and, if so, what are your results?
-------
Assuming these are pork, to be on the generous side, figuring 30
adults at 3 per person, and 10 kids at 2 per person (if it was my
family). That's 110 ribs. You can do the math from there. If you're
doing meaty beef ribs, 2 per person (80 ribs) is plenty.

The vertical rib racks are great. The flavor is the same. The only
hassle is turning the ribs top to bottom, which takes a little
patience.

Reheating in loose foil works just fine, and keeps the ribs moist.

Abe wrote:

Snippification has occured

>
> The vertical rib racks are great. The flavor is the same. The only
> hassle is turning the ribs top to bottom, which takes a little
> patience.

I don't turn pork ribs. I have no such hassle.

--
Matthew

I'm a contractor. If you want an opinion, I'll sell you one.
Which one do you want?

On 21-Apr-2005, "Matthew L. Martin" > wrote:

> Abe wrote:
>
> Snippification has occured
>
> >
> > The vertical rib racks are great. The flavor is the same. The only
> > hassle is turning the ribs top to bottom, which takes a little
> > patience.
>
> I don't turn pork ribs. I have no such hassle.
>
> --
> Matthew

I don't turn them either, but I watch them close in case one gets
done before another. I don't turn, I don't mop and I don't sweat it.

Brick (Keep the shiny side up)

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Abe wrote:

> ..... If you're
> doing meaty beef ribs, 2 per person (80 ribs) is plenty.

I've yet to run into a slab of beef ribs that has more meat than a slab of
untrimmed pork spare ribs. Packing houses would rather leave as much meat
as possible on the prime rib roast.

> The vertical rib racks are great. The flavor is the same. The only
> hassle is turning the ribs top to bottom, which takes a little
> patience.

Never turn mine. Rib racks do work just fine, if one needs the space like
th OP

> Reheating in loose foil works just fine, and keeps the ribs moist.

--
Dave
Dave's Pit-Smoked Bar-B-Que
http://davebbq.com/

>The vertical rib racks are great. The flavor is the same. The only
>hassle is turning the ribs top to bottom, which takes a little
>patience.
-----------
I should have been clear about turning. Not necessary for pork, but
beef ribs seem to do better for me with 1 top to bottom turn at the
halfway point.

"Matthew L. Martin" > wrote in message

> Abe wrote:
>
> Snippification has occured
>
>>
>> The vertical rib racks are great. The flavor is the same. The only
>> hassle is turning the ribs top to bottom, which takes a little
>> patience.
>
> I don't turn pork ribs. I have no such hassle.
>

Same here, except when I just have the need to tinker. Then I'll turn
'em. Usually, I leave them alone 'til done.

BOB

First of all, thanks to all for your suggestions. As it turned out,
though, I ended up not using any of it. ;)

As I mentioned, I planned to smoke six slabs of ribs for a family
reunion this past weekend, but when I got to pricing ribs, I began to
have second thoughts! One Wal Mart I went to only had one slab of ribs
in the whole store (Tyson brand at $2.24/lb), so I went to Sam's Club
next door to see what they had to offer. Sam's did have 3-packs of spare
ribs for $2.47/lb (average $30/pack). No way I was going to spend $60 on
this cook and not even be preparing the main course! So...I decided to
cook a couple of pork butts, instead.

Thursday evening, I bought two Boston Butts, approximately 8 lbs each,
took them home and prepared them for cooking the next day with my
favorite rub. Friday afternoon, I took the butts out of the fridge and
started a chimney of charcoal. Put the meat on the ECB about 6:00 PM and
cooked it through the night, rotating the butts top-bottom/bottom-top
every couple of hours until about midnight, when I refilled the charcoal
pan and went to bed. Slept until 3:00 AM, when I got up to rotate the
meat and stir the coals a bit. Got up again at 6:00 AM to add charcoal
and rotate the meat one last time. The temp of the top butt was 182
degrees, and the bottom one was 175. Let 'em cook further until 8:00,
when I pulled the butts off the smoker. (Didn't think to check the temps
at this time, but the meat was falling apart when I took if off the
smoker. :)

Wrapped the butts in double layers of foil, put them in the cooler and
loaded the truck for the 2-1/2 hour trip to the state park. Once I got
to the park, I took the butts from the cooler and put them in large
plastic meat trays (from Wal Mart) and began pulling them. They were
still quite hot and so tender that they literally shredded as I pulled
them. Needless to say, there wasn't much of that pulled pork left to
take home! :)

On a side note, you know how you sometimes get a flash of inspiration
for an idea, only to have it turn sour on you? Well, I had it happen to
me, this weekend. When I was thinking of how to insulate the meat in the
cooler, it occurred to me that I had a big plastic bag full of those
styrofoam packing "peanuts" in the storeroom that I had been collecting
for several years, and that stuff should make excellent insulation. So,
I put a 3-4 inch layer of foam peanuts in the bottom of the cooler, put
the meat in on top of that, and then filled the cooler with more
peanuts! Worked great, but I neglected to consider one small thing. When
we got to the reunion, it was quite breezy, and every time I opened the
cooler, styrofoam peanuts flew everywhere! I finally managed to get the
meat out by opening the lid just far enough to get my hand in inside and
fish around for the meat and pull it out without too many pieces of foam
escaping. Oh, well...live and learn! ;)

Stan Marks