So your first sergeant or your CO has just asked you to put on a cook-out for the unit. Tomorrow. Are you up to the job? Do you want it to go off well, or do you want to screw up in front of everybody? Just remember this: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
"But Grill Sergeant," you say, "cook-outs are easy." My, my, aren't we the know-it-all? Nothing is too trivial to benefit from good planning. Everything you need to do takes time. Plan that time out.
Ask how many people to expect. If the answer is "the whole squadron," see if this means every warm body on the roster, or only half of them, or somewhere in between.
Ask whether spouses and children are invited (or expected to show up in force).
Ask if the event will be a potluck (families bring side dishes) or merely a burger-and-chips thing.
Many of the items needed for a cookout have a shelf life that makes for keeping leftovers. Check out the place where your unit keeps this stuff and see if there's anything leftover from the last time:
You will need meat. You need to know how many people will be eating, and what they're going to eat. Get the best estimate. You will need two servings of meat for each adult or teenaged male, about one and a half for each adult or teenaged female, and one for each child. Food preference ratios are:
Chances are you will not be serving all of these meats. Partition the total number of meat servings among these categories, using the proportions given above. So if you are providing 60 servings of meat, and you've selected only hamburgers and hotdogs, you get 60 x 4/(4+2) = 40 hamburgers and 60 x 2/(4+2) = 20 hotdogs.
If you are in Germany, get real German bratwursts; the American ones are not a reasonable facsimile.
You will need bread. Get one hamburger bun per hamburger and one hot dog bun per hot dog. If you're in Germany, get fresh German rolls for the bratwursts, otherwise use hot dog buns.
Bread has a limited shelf life, even in the freezer, so unless you hold another cookout very soon, leftover bread is essentially wasted.
You will need drinks. Get three drinks for every two people. Coke and Diet Coke are the most popular flavors, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi come in second, followed by the other flavors. Get more of the popular stuff and less of the fringe stuff.
Beer, wine, and other spirits: The Grill sergeant, having sworn off strong drink, does not involve himself in the procurement of the same. Let the drunks fend for themselves.
You may need chips. Sometimes the cook-out is also a potluck, and sometimes it isn't. If not, get about two ounces of chips for each person in attendance.
You will need condiments:
You will need ice. For canned and bottled drinks you need to chill the cans. For poured drinks you need ice for the cups.
You may need cups. If the drinks come in two-liter bottles, you will need three cups for every two people. Twelve-ounce cups are okay.
You will need plates. Most people will use one plate. A few will use more. Figure on three plates for every two people.
You will need eating utensils. If the side dishes are strictly finger food, you only need utensils for condiments (a couple utensils for every condiment that needs them). If side dishes require forks, you will need three forks for every two people. If side dishes require spoons, you will require three spoons for every two people. Side dishes that require an eating utensil also require a serving utensil for each dish.
You will need napkins. Plan on two for each person.
You will need a cooler for canned drinks. An ordinary picnic cooler works. A clean trash can, lined with a new bag, works fine too, and provides entertainment: "Got any cream soda?" "I think there's a few in the bottom, lieutenant." "I guess I gotta dig for it." (Don't try this on the CO, unless one of his bootlicks is around, or else he'll tell you to dig for it. If one of his bootlicks is around, they'll dig for it, which is entertaining.)
You will need a cooler for the meat. An ordinary picnic cooler works.
You will need warming pans. These are for holding the cooked meat. Use those one-time foil pans from the commissary. Get one for each serving line, plus one more for the grill. The Grill Sergeant supposes that if you're environmentally conscious, you can get some serving platters and re-use them.
You will need grilling utensils. Spatulas are best for hamburgers. Tongs and/or forks are good for hotdogs and other sausages. Tongs work best for ribs and steaks. For chicken, both tongs and a spatula (for meat that sticks to the grill) are needed. You need enough so that every cook has one available.
You will need at least one grill. When polled, the experts agreed that a grill is necessary for grilling. Hamburgers do better over a warmer fire. Steak, chicken, ribs and Yankee brats are better off over a cooler fire. Hot dogs and German brats can be cooked over either kind of fire. Unless your grill is long, you will need multiple grills for multiple fires.
You may need charcoal. One large bag for each grill is enough for a couple hours of grilling. The MatchLite stuff starts easily, but burns out quickly (in about an hour). The regular Kingford needs fluid to get going, but it burns for a long time. Royal Oak takes fluid to get started, but burns well once started.
Naturally, if your grill runs on gas, you don't need charcoal. The Grill Sergeant hopes you knew this already.
You may need lighter fluid. If you buy the regular Kingsford (blue bag) or the Royal Oak (red bag), you will need lighter fluid. One can is good enough to get three large bags going.
Please put the leftover lighter fluid into the flammables locker, or else the ground safety folks will get into a snit.
You will need tables. You need one table for the grillers, and at least one for the serving line.
You will need trash bags.
You will need a gopher. Especially if you forget something.
Commissary hamburger patties must be thawed before you light the grill. This is in reference to the patties that the commissary makes. They are packed with a single layer of paper that isn't waterproof, so when they are frozen they turn into a big frozen lump. The boxed frozen pucks are difficult to separate when frozen. The blister packs are impossible to get apart when frozen, and any day now the Grill Sergeant expects to read about someone who hurt himself trying.
The upshot: Buy your meat unfrozen if at all possible, and keep it that way. If you have to buy frozen meat, have a plan for thawing it.
Name-brand hamburger patties are packed with paper that usually makes the patties come apart easily. Some commerical brands are okay, and others are quite nasty. The okay stuff is red. If it's not red, it still may have come from a cow, but not from the part of the cow that the Grill Sergeant eats.
Other meats should be thawed before you light the grill, unless you have been directed to serve food that is burned on the outside and raw in the middle.
Start your fire one hour before you intend to start serving food. This gives the fire half an hour to get ready for cooking. You have to let the fire burn until all of the lighter fluid is burned up or driven off by the heat. When you fan the charcoal the flame will be reddish instead of yellow. The coals will be mostly gray or red as well.
Yes, it is fun to set the bag on fire without removing the charcoal. It's also fun watching the huge pieces of ash go floating around. The Grill Sergeant hopes that none of it lands on the food, or on some VIP's crisp, clean uniform. If you want to amuse the Ground Safety folks, coat the bag with lighter fluid, light it, and then poke a hole in it.
Hamburgers: When a burger curls down, it's time to flip it. If a burger is sweating red on the top side, flip it. Do not serve a burger until its juice is no longer pink; however, once the juice is clear, get it off of the grill. If you're working with frozen pucks, it's not hard to judge things; when they're done shrinking, they're done. Do not serve a bleeding burger, except to adults who expressly ask for it. They're asking for it, all right.
Hot dogs: Hot dogs are sold fully cooked. Some people want them warmed up, some people want them blistered a bit, and some want theirs blackened. Cook them to order.
Bratwursts: Real German bratwursts should be cooked on one side until that side just starts to split. It will be a nice light brown color on that side. Then flip it and cook until the other side looks the same way. Then it's done. Goodness, they're wonderful...
Yankee factory brats should be cooked over a cooler flame, so that they can get cooked on the inside without burning on the outside; the difficulty in accomplishing this is the other reason the Grill Sergeant does not esteem them highly.
Chicken: Chicken should be cooked until there is no translucency in the meat. The meat will be bouncy when you tap it.
Steak: Steak should be cooked to order. The outer surface should be fully cooked, but the inside will vary according to the customer's tastes.
Schwanks Schwanks are pork, for which the policy of full cooking is enforced by the trichinosis worm. The best way to go is to use a knife to cut the thickest part. If there's any pink, put them back; otherwise, serve it up!
Sauce should always be put on in the last couple seconds on the grill; otherwise it just burns off.
Don't throw everything onto the serving table at once, unless you like the idea of having five opened packs of hot dog buns, each with one to three buns taken. Instead, have one of each item out there, and provide adult supervision to replace these items as they become exhausted.
Line up your clean-up volunteers ahead of time. If you don't, there may be some kind-hearted slave to duty who'll help you, but the Grill Sergeant doesn't like to take chances.
Leftover cooked food should be taken to wherever shift workers are on duty. Even if they're in another unit.
Put the meat in the refrigerator (if you expect another cookout within the week), or in the freezer. However, meat that has been frozen and thawed cannot go into the freezer; find a way to use it.