I'm not a caterer. I have to cook for 100. Yikes!
Menu: 1/4 lb. burgers frozen + buns,hot dogs+ buns
beans, vegie cabobs, chips, cake, tea, lemonaide.
Crowd: scouts, dads, moms.

Propane (think fried turkey) cooker for heating beans
Weber Ranch grill, another grill similar to a 22"grill

Any suggestions would be helpfull.
Menu is somewhat flexible.
Any rec. for the vegie cabobs?

What about the issues I do not know about-never cooked for 100 before???? T H A N K S

Steve,

Sounds like you're going to be a busy man! Some issues you may have already considered, but I'll list in no particular order:

1. Enlist a few helpers!
2. Foil pans to keep burgers and dogs warm
3. Place to put those foil pans while they're warming.
4. Good covers for the grills; with the frozen patties you'll have flair ups.
5. Squirt bottle w/ water for flair ups.
6. Veggie kabos...hmmm...try to get a head count if possible on this one; you don't want to go over board on making these. Select veggies that will cook at the same rate. Keep veggies the same size. You might consider something like this combo: onion, yellow squash, cherry tomato, zucchini, mushroom. Use a oil/vinegar baste.
7. Get as much done ahead of time as possible. Plan accordingly; burgers take longer than dogs. You might even consider some par cooking like with the dogs. Steam them, then just toss them on the grill for marks.
8. Tables. You'll need a number of tables for condiments, sides, etc. A meal like this can bottle neck as people snake their way through a line and assemble their burgers, etc.

Paul

On the flare-up issue...should I use a single layer fire on the ranch...cover about 2/3's for direct cooking and leave 1/3 without coals?

Hey Steve.

I used to volunteer to cook for my son's youth tackle football games.
If you set your dogs perpendicular to your grates, with a one dog space at the back and the front, It's pretty easy to roll 5-6 dogs at a time with the back of a spatula instead of turning each one with a set of tongs.
With the burgers in a box, when flare-ups happened, we just stacked 5-6 burgers like a deck of cards, moved them to indirect till everything calmed down, than flipped em and dealt them back on the grates..

I'm not much of a help, but I hope you enjoy yourself and I'm sure everyone will appreciate your effort!!

Tim

I had a similar cook a few weeks ago, using a large (rented) gas grill. I had to really improvise when two of the burners on the grill refused to stay lit. It was an open top grill so I had to use my aluminum pans as improvised grill lids to speed along the cooking.

You've got a couple of things going for you: 1/4 lb burgers probably are relatively thin and, once thawed, will cook reasonably fast and you've got a Big Mamu Weber Rancher.

Lessons from my effort: start cooking the burgers well in advance of when you need to start serving and have a bunch ready to go when the serving begins. Put them in an aluminum pan to keep them warm and put the pan either over your indirect section of your Rancher or use the second grill as a warming grill. Use the turkey cooker and a large stock pot to heat the hot dogs, then toss them on the grill to get some carmelization and grill marks - just as somebody else proposed. Finally, enlist about three volunteers to run food to the tables, let you know what you need to be cooking and, most importantly, keep you supplied in beverages!

Good Luck!

Pat

Used to do this for our local Lion's Club grilling 100's of burgers for our Music Fest. In the aluminum pans put in some au jux to keep the burgers moist. They'll hold for quite awhile. Keep pan covered with foil and place over indirect heat side of a secondary grill.

Dan

Pat Smith

quote:

I had a similar cook a few weeks ago, using a large (rented) gas grill.

Pat, You've got more grills than a Weber warehouse, and had to use a rented one?
Guess it wasn't a BYOG affair!

Thanks for starting this thread Steve, and to all of the helpful posters.
I will be the main Cook next Spring for our family reunion, and the tips will come in handy.

Steve, what is your actual grill/ heat / hold containers situation going to be. You noted the Ranch but what else will you be using for this cook because all the great ideas with a 2nd grill will not work unless you have them.

My $0.02 - Only do 1/2 charcoal. Lots o' burgers will flare. Do them in 3-4 batches. Keep them in foil pans on the non-coal half to keep warm. Keep your dogs over there, too. They'll warm through while you're grilling the burgers and kabobs. Then just throw them on the coals for some charring.

Thanks guys...good ideas. We're p to 110-115 head count. I am thinking three grills and two cooks.
Food runners are a great idea and needed.
Large aluminum pans to hold food.

Cabob help. If I use mushrooms, onions and red peppers...how much to buy?
Mushrooms come in 2 lb, packs.
Peppers in six packs.
Onions in 3-4 lb. bag.

I find the flip up Ranch grill grates to be not very useful for large grilling situations - fire toward the middle. You can't reach in far enough from the side to be effective at working the fire up or down. Be sure to bring a set of HD rubber gloves (heat tolerant), so you can grab the grate, and move it (offset it on the RK, or set it on a 22"), while you add coals/stir the fire.

Cast iron skillet to fry bacon for burgers? Sauteed mushrooms for burgers?

Just guessing, but probably 20-30 skewers of veg kabobs will be plenty. So, 1 GP pkg, 1 bag onions, and 2-4 pkg mushrooms should suffice. Unless there is a large vegetarian contingent in the crowd!

This may seem weird and Im sure somebody will disagree but...
When cooking large #s of box burgers we use a heavy duty sheet pan to cook the burgers on "halfway done just to get the grease out" then take them off and onto grill # 2 and never had a problem with grease fires or flare ups. Works really well. Just have a metal bucket to keep pouring the grease into between batches.

The Perry Brothers cooked a huge family gathering and my older brother came up with this idea. I wasnt to keen about it "I am the worrier/anal one", but I got to give him credit for this idea.

Steve, relax and have fun with this. The most important piece to the cooking for large numbers puzzle is to have enough good grill experienced helpers. If you are doing this for scouts, "Be prepared". You can try a test cook for your kabobs, as they may be your only challenge. If you serve in groups of 25 or so, you will eliminate big lines and backups. Have fun!

more good ideas...test cook kabobs-not a bad idea
precook burgers in a pan ...fine idea

doug i am thinking two weber charcoal starters full for my coals on the ranch...your thoughts

Steve, the Ranch is pretty efficient for fuel use, it really does not require much more than a regular kettle. I have used the central area, roughly the size of a 22.5" kettle, and used the outer ring area for the cooler/indirect zone for sausages/hot dogs/maybe your kebabs. Smoke 'em while grilling the burgers, then move 'em to direct to finish charring.

Put a load of unlit in it, and dump a lit chimney on it. It'll take care of itself, until you need to add more coals. Then pick up the cooking grate, move it aside to balance on the edge of the RK, add more unlit. Add lit only if your fire has really died down low, and needs to pick up fast.

Test Cook:
Kabobs were v. good. We need twice as many as planned. I suppose I cut the veggies a little small but they cook just as fast as the burgers and cook evenly! Thats good.
Kabob: onion, mushroom, grape tomato, pepper, pineapple, zuchini, squash
burgers: 1/3 lb. 15% fat took 6-7 min. per side.

Hey Steve, Looks like you got it all figured out. Good luck with the cook.
Note: I think i missed in the first post where you mentioned about what you had to use.

Just when I felt confident that we could pull it off...now a forecast of 80% HEAVY rain !
Plus 10-20 wind.

May need to cook offsite (my garage) and transport 1 mile to church. I have a double oven and a convection oven for holding...transport all hot and cooked.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Steve Petrone,

Time for a Report.
We had light rain and the good news is we were able to cook in a covered breeze way. As rec. I did a test run...I did not plan for rock hard frozen burgers that were much larger in diameter than my test cook. So instead of 30 burgers going on my grill, I was able to get 18 on 3/4's of a ranch. Frozen and fewer blew my plans out of the water. I was expected to cook burgers, hot dogs and two coolers full of veggie kabobs. The hot dogs went on my no fire part of the ranch. The kabobs went on the 22" kettle that was planned to be a holding oven to keep warm....
After staring the ranch with 1 1/2 loads of hot coals, I quickly understood I would need all the ranch and the kettle for cooking. I would add 2 more full chimneys of coals to the fires. Although we started early enough...we needed all three grills going full bore to feed 115 people. The crowd managed to socialize and not complain having to wait 30-45 minutes to get food.
My short coming was not getting on the same page the lead cook on how we would get the food out in a more timely fashion. The worst part was the stress of cooking the food properly and knowing folks were waiting. Oh my I had just a taste of what a caterer might go thru. It is no easy task. They did enjoy the food. The marinated veggie kabobs (that were hours of work...) were well received.
Thanks to all who helped with input. I needed every bit of it!

Glad to hear that you survived the cook Steve!
Sounds like it went fairly well, all things considered.

Heck, I can get a bit stressed trying to get a Que to come together for just a small family group.