party portions per person, my formula!

I work at a 2 station fire dept with 13 on duty. This is where I have gotten my practice.
For pulled/choped shoulder.

.75(pound)x(number of people)+1pound for every 5 people. If serving on a bun with slaw and bbq beans.

so for my shift 13x.75=9.75+2.6=12.35 or 12.5(for easy purchases) pounds before cooking.
for 100 people it would be 95 pounds.

I have done this many times and it works! I even did a few parties and the formula worked well.
each time there was enough left over for a sandwhich or two the next day.

Brisket, is just flat 1 pound per person, after trimming and cooking it comes out to .5-.75 pounds per person. Again these figures are for meat if other stuff is getting served too.

dnfd737 wrote:

each time there was enough left over for a sandwhich or two the next day.

That's the most important thing.

Brad

dnfd737 wrote:

.75(pound)x(number of people)+1pound for every 5 people. If serving on a bun with slaw and bbq beans.

Brisket, is just flat 1 pound per person, after trimming and cooking it comes out to .5-.75 pounds per person. Again these figures are for meat if other stuff is getting served too.

Good guidelines IMO. I've also come across some catering spreadsheets on the internet (and they were posted here too at one time) that get pretty heavy into the estimating based on a few entries. But having a general rule like you do is a nice easy way to ballpark the amounts.

dnfd737 wrote:

each time there was enough left over for a sandwhich or two the next day.

I'd suggest using like .8 pounds per person so that you can have enough for like a half dozen sammies.