How are you holding your Q

[gelenn]

We've been having a few complaints from customers about their pulled pork or pulled chicken not being hot when they got it. It came to a head yesterday when my sister's friend got the pulled chicken and it was not hot and had bones in it (we use boneless skinless thighs for our pulled chicken, not sure how this happened). My sister (she's in the restaurant biz big time in Atl) wanted to see the kitchen and how we hold and serve our food. We have two Winston CVAPS we hold and serve our meats out of and a steam table that holds our sides. The CVAPS are constantly being opened to pull orders from so I know they are losing a lot of heat and steam, not the intended use for them. I tried holding in the steam table but everything got dried out to quickly. Looking for answers or advise on what you guys do, I've got to get this problem solved. Would CVAPS holding drawers be a better answer? We do not have a microwave in the house but when the temp drops below serving temp how do you get it back to temp? What temp do you guys serve at? My sister said her serving temps were 170. I have my CVAPS set at 170 and +2. Thanks for any help!!!

[Paul L.]

Seems like your food should be plenty hot. Are you pulling the meat ahead of time? Or holding whole and pulling to order? That's how we've been able to maintain temps. Our Cvap cabinets are set at 150 +4.
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Changing lives, one sandwich at a time!

[Harry Nutczak]

Are you serving on cold dinner plates?
Stoneware pulls heat out of food fast, and how long was the order sitting before it hit the table?

If you're serving on plates as opposed to paper lined baskets and trays, that may very well be you problem.
When you're pulling your meat, is it under a heatlamp?

We employ a heatlamp above the cutting board, move quickly as we can, and serve on paper.
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Just remember that the toes you may step on during your climb to the top will also be attached to the a$$es you'll be forced to kiss on your way back down!

[gelenn]

We are pulling our meat to order, no pre-pulling unless we have a large group about to come in. We do not pull under a heat lamp, I do like that idea. Harry we serve on plastic trays lined with butcher paper. Our problem is the meat temps low in the CVAP when we are constantly opening it during busy service times, I'm just not sure the holding cabinet is designed to be opened for as long as we are keeping it open. We actually pull our butts in the holding cabinet a lot of the time instead of taking it out, closing the door and then pulling the order on a table. I did bump up the temp yesterday and it helped but still during service I noticed the temps falling again.

[Harry Nutczak]

We run our CVAP's at 165 water temp, and 2-5 on the texture (dry heat)
My meat typically sits at about 145-150,

I get really bent out of shape if I have a draft coming across my cutting board, and we time things very tightly so the food is not sitting losing heat before hitting the table.

My main guy on the line and I are always communicating to properly time things to avoid heat loss.

The last things to hit the trays are hot sides & meats,

Now I threw another wrench into our operation by doing pizza too, so imagine timing BBQ with pizza. The pizza cant come out too soon or the pan it is on gets too hot to handle, and if the BBQ comes up first, it sits and cools rapidly
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Just remember that the toes you may step on during your climb to the top will also be attached to the a$$es you'll be forced to kiss on your way back down!

[bjbbq]

We had a similar issue at one point and found that the Sham was a bit too cool, so we upped the temp to 155. Secret in a Sham(not sure about a CVAP) is to keep all food tightly wrapped and not cut or pulled before service.

Another thing that has improved our quality of service with chicken is a ........wait for it..............microwave. Yes, we use it almost exclusively for chicken so we can heat it up by portion. This way, the boneless skinless thigh meat can be pulled/chopped right after coming out of the smoker. Then it is stored in the cooler and heated up as needed. This keeps it fresh and juicy and hot. We sell lots more chicken since switching over to this method.

[gelenn]

Thanks guys, we have bumped up the CVAP's temp and that has helped. Adding a heat lamp to the cutting and pulling station--thanks Harry! Also think the heat lamp on our window is not enough and going to upgrade it as well. Already hollering and getting on servers ass about picking up orders!!!
Harry, what type pizza are you doing, New York style? I see you're using Grande cheese, good stuff, only I use the east coast blend. What is your current sales mix, we are really trying to increase our pizza sales for obvious reasons. Going into this endeavor I wasn't sure what to expect, here in SW Georgia BBQ rules!

[Harry Nutczak]