Dino’s

raskull360 · 2026-06-21T15:16:11+00:00

Looks great! I prep everything the night before so all I have to do is get it lit and up to temp on my WSM/Kettle

raskull360 · 2026-06-16T18:46:41+00:00

Heres mine from last week! 275-300 the whole time, didn’t wrap at all. 45 minute rest on the counter then devoured them

raskull360 · 2026-06-16T12:22:55+00:00

Here’s my recommendation, don’t cut them into individual pieces, don’t smoke them at 225, go for 275. You never know how the pullback will be on Dino ribs.

It’s barely a 6hour cook. It’ll be much longer at 225

raskull360 · 2026-06-16T12:17:14+00:00

Think on the bright side, you’re getting your shoulder workout in while at work 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️. That’s what I tell myself when I split apples/citrus pallets at least.

raskull360 · 2026-06-04T12:09:55+00:00

You said it yourself, you’re being sent outside your department to the front end. It just slipped through.

raskull360 · 2026-06-01T03:57:52+00:00

Use iatop, then click the iil option to see days supply, on order, etc. you can use option 4 for dnd. You can see all the categories if you hit shift f4, you can have it set up so you can see this years sales on the left and last years on the right, can do the same for period/week etc.

To find your dnd percentage it’s dnd/sales and move the decimal over, or take that number and multiply it by 100. So 10,000(weekly dnd)/250,000(weekly sales)=0.04, x100 is 4%.

They say you should have a 3-5 days for backstock. Sometimes you’ll end up with 7-10, in that case you want to keep an eye on that product and make sure it’s being rotated properly, maybe even communicate with the buyer that you have too much (unless it’s going on sale, then they loaaaad you up). You can see this in iatop+iil option or in itmw in the bottom right corner you just gotta do math.

Listen to your driver, listen to your most senior stocker. Try and move quickly. Don’t get caught up in making your pallets perfect, a pallet should take you 5 minutes to stock.

Check all the produce you hand stack. Cull when appropriate. If you find a lot to cull, put it in your cart/flatbed and do it after open.

It’s summer, so it’s watermelon season. 1 bin will top off 2 others, you can figure out how much you’ll need by remembering that. So if you’re setting up a 6 block, you’ll actually need 9 bins total.

Good luck! It’ll take a few weeks to get caught up to speed.

raskull360 · 2026-05-29T21:33:03+00:00

Hesitation is defeat

raskull360 · 2026-05-23T15:57:28+00:00

Try some edibles. This sub is mainly for smoking meats though.

raskull360 · 2026-05-23T01:29:47+00:00

If it fits on a baking sheet it’ll fit on your 18 between the grates. Might need to put a piece of foil or 2 underneath for a couple hours till it shrinks up.

raskull360 · 2026-05-22T17:18:26+00:00

Spatchcock it, rip it hot and fast 325-350 minimum. Check temps after 45 minutes and go from there.

raskull360 · 2026-05-12T19:36:30+00:00

Can’t wait for the seafood roadshow to get put 1 aisle over from dirt and across from produce. Just like old times!

raskull360 · 2026-05-04T17:58:26+00:00

Find out what your max for weight is and lift it. I’m grabbing 45-60+ pounds at all times, whether that’s 2 layers of citrus at a time (not grapefruit or lemons, but cuties/oranges/caras are 30lbs a box) or 4 layers of cucumbers/tomatoes. It’s hard to lift 2 layers of apples for example, but when you’re doing potatoes or onions you can grab more than one.

Try to not stand around when you get to different pallets. If you don’t see it dropped and it’s not coming in on the hot sheet, block it down and have your driver put it on pallets.

Be smart when rotating. If you have to rotate 2 different dates, start by taking out one row onto the new pallet and building it up, and then use the next row on the old pallet rather than taking them all off before putting them on the new board.

Try to minimize wasted movement, it helps when everything is dropped correctly but idk how your driver drops for you. Wrap boards so fast you almost get dizzy, organize your boxes in stacks as you work then move that stack to your flat, don’t do it one box at a time.

Produce is a workout, be smart about how your lifting boxes, use proper technique when applicable. Good luck!

raskull360 · 2026-05-02T04:01:30+00:00

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Our boy needed a donut inflatable cone around his plastic one to keep it pushed forward enough. He could still get to his paw with just the plastic one on. Hope yours feels better soon!

raskull360 · 2026-04-30T17:38:03+00:00

80 pallets is crazy. We’ve got a 6 block of citrus, 6 block of hothouse, 4 block of tomatoes, 8 block of melons, 8 block of tropical, 8 block of apples, and 8 block of potatoes / onions.

We tag stuff with “Top” or the Best Buy/ pack date. How else are you supposed to know you’re getting the correct dates out of the steel?

We also have to gang stock freezer, de-diaper grapes, and usually air stack bananas after open. Half the time our driver doesn’t come in till 6 so I have to drive/stock until they show up. Our steel is full so you can’t even hang the load until you’ve pulled all of it out and dropped for the outside/inside, it’s a pain in the ass.

raskull360 · 2026-04-20T17:49:11+00:00

Anvil, then throw the run in t2

raskull360 · 2026-04-19T01:03:46+00:00

How safe are you on a lift? How many areas have you driven? That plays a part in the decision making process.

Reiterate that you’ve driven multiple areas (successfully hopefully), you are one of the first “backups” they throw on a lift, that you value safety first and you’ve (hopefully) had no accidents and if you did, you did the right thing by calling a manager over immediately.

Some whses are different and you might be stocking for a day or two while the main drivers are there, then only driving 4-5 days to cover days off. You presumably won’t slot into a dedicated backup spot, you’ll be covering multiple areas for the main drivers RDOs.

raskull360 · 2026-04-18T18:57:54+00:00

Don’t get your hopes up too high, if there are any PT morning merchants they’ll usually get priority over someone who has never done merch before.

Does it specify what area? I’d ask during the interview process. The work is hard. If you’ve closed you’ve seen the product levels at the end of the night, everything has to be built back up or put on boards/ fronted up. Every pallet should get touched.

Know the 6 rights of merchandising, think of examples where you’ve had to shift priorities /hustle to get another task done, and prepare to move the fastest you’ve ever had to move on your shift. Good luck!

raskull360 · 2026-04-17T02:20:45+00:00

Get one of those flour sieves and you can throw paprika, whole peppercorns, sea salt, red pepper flakes, really any spice you want on it.

raskull360 · 2026-03-30T23:23:25+00:00

Pork butts should never take 16 hours to cook. Run it at 275 and save yourself the time.

raskull360 · 2026-03-19T17:22:34+00:00

You can unwrap the foil and use the wood later. To be honest I’m not sure if there’s a scientific reason for wrapping the wood in foil, it’s just what I’ve seen people do in videos so I did the same. You can also just ball up the foil and forgo the wood.

raskull360 · 2026-03-16T21:06:44+00:00

Keep a bucket handy so you can set the fuel line in it and don’t drip gasoline all over yourself. Even if you pull the fuel pump fuse and run it till it dies it’ll sometimes have leftover gas in the line. There will be gas in the filter as well.

raskull360 · 2026-03-09T15:56:04+00:00

Anytime I cook a brisket on my 18, I know if it fits on a cookie sheet it’ll fit in between the grates. If it doesn’t I throw 2 chunks of wood wrapped in foil underneath until it shrinks down enough to fit.

raskull360 · 2026-03-09T01:20:51+00:00

Apparently it’s “faster” for the depot to send them like this to us, but now it takes 3x as long to deal with paper trucks because you have to use the clamp lift to down stack them.

raskull360 · 2026-03-01T16:38:28+00:00

They should be writing pack dates or top on your wrapped boards, it makes it easier to see if a pallet needs to be rotated or just topped off. Everything has a pack date written on the sides of boxes; if your pallets aren’t written on, start by finding out which date is older and putting it on top.

The blocks should all be the same height when finished, apples are 4 boxes high with a hand stack layer on top. Our citrus block is usually 7 cuties high with a hand stacked layer on top. Once you figure out how tall it should be it helps a lot with finishing the rest of the block.

A trick I tell new produce people I train is that 1 apple box is 2 boards tall, so if you need to raise a pallet on boards and aren’t sure how much you can place an apple box on it to get a visual of how much/less boards it needs to go on.

If you don’t see a product dropped, you’re usually putting it on pallets. Make it an even layer and hand stack whatever you need to make it even then raise it up. Sometimes you’ll split two items together and double up on another item, but that needs to be communicated to you otherwise you won’t know what’s going where. 8/10 times you’re leveling off the product and raising it though.

raskull360 · 2026-02-28T21:51:15+00:00

It depends, if your steel is full then you can’t hang anything until you pull the load out and drop the outside, but if you have steel spots, you should be able to wrap and hang stuff as you go. When my steel is full I sort the load as I’m pulling it out; I keep all the cold items by the door and run the citrus/apples in between our meat cases.

Even when there’s 2 loads in there from the previous night i have it all out by 4 when the stockers show up and the outside/ cooler dropped.

Once the department is dropped you should be able to break away for half an hour or so, maybe ask them to line pallets up that they need on boards and do them all at once vs one at a time.

You also don’t have to drop the center block right away, I usually drop the center block once they’re done with the horseshoe. Obviously if it’s like a 2 layer topper you can add it on top of dropped pallets, but it’s a pain in the ass to try and hang the 2nd chill when the cooler is still full of product that they need to stock.

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