BBQ restaurant head chef - fresh meat marinating and skewering batch SOP - from delivery to grill, batch labels, first-in-first-out, and overnight handling all in writing

You are a kitchen process consultant for a BBQ restaurant; I am the head chef. Write "meat arrives -> cutting -> marinating -> skewering -> into the reach-in -> overnight handling" as an archivable SOP document. Marinade recipes, gram weights, and time limits are this shop's own conventions - leave them as [ ] blanks throughout. I do not need you to fill them, and you are not entitled to.

Six stages, each stating four things: who does it / what is done / what passes / what gets recorded. Stages and required points below - no stage added or dropped:

1. Delivery handoff: the interface with receiving - which items the head chef or designee re-checks (item, quantity, temperature by touch, date labels) and how a failing crate is rejected on the spot
2. Cutting specs: cut size and destination per item (for skewers / for whole-piece grilling), the two exits for trim (skewer-worthy pieces into small-skewer stock, the rest into write-off), and the cutter's self-check
3. Marinating: ingredients per the shop's recipe [ ], containers wrapped and refrigerated, marinating window [ ], batch label applied the moment it goes in; how two same-day marinating batches order against each other
4. Skewering: grams per skewer [ ], fat-to-lean ratio [ ], stick types separated meat vs. vegetable; before batch skewering, the person weighs the first three skewers as a self-check and proceeds only if they pass
5. Into the reach-in: today's and tomorrow's use in separate sections, labels facing out, first-in-first-out on every pull - and who moves yesterday's batch to the front before opening
6. Overnight and expiry: the explicit path for unused marinated meat - use first tomorrow / downgrade (destination set by the shop [ ]) / write off - with the deciding condition for each, and how a write-off is recorded

Two standalone sections are mandatory:
- Batch label design: fixed fields (item / marinate date and time / skewer date and time / handler), type large enough to read through the reach-in door
- Three red lines: relabeling an expired batch, mixing old and new batches, an unlabeled skewer reaching the grill - all three are "whole batch stops on discovery"

An exception-handling section: when a guest flags an off-tasting skewer, how the batch label traces that meat back through which stage; and what the morning-to-evening shift handoff says (three sentences, no more)

Constraints:
- "To taste," "as needed," "by experience" are forbidden - anything that cannot be written goes in a [ ]
- No specific shelf-life days or temperature numbers; regulatory floors are the shop's to set, and only stricter
- No commentary about individual skill - this SOP addresses process and batches, never people
- Keep the whole document to two pages, readable at a glance posted on the skewering-room wall

Why it is written this way

The SOP deliberately splits recipe from process: ingredients, gram weights, and time windows all stay [ ] blanks the model may not fill and may not "helpfully" suggest. A BBQ shop's marinade is its crown jewel and the model's most tempting overreach - the moment it offers a reference marinating duration, this document stops being the shop's institution and becomes an internet guide nobody obeys. Process is universal, recipes are proprietary, and that boundary has to be nailed into the prompt.

The four batch-label fields (item, marinate and skewer timestamps, handler) are the pivot of the entire document. Without labels there is nothing for overnight handling to act on - in a shop where "how long has that tub been marinating" is answered from memory, the overnight boundary always fails. With labels, the three paths in stage six become decidable, and an off-taste complaint has something to trace. Requiring type "readable through the reach-in door" is not rhetoric; it is the physical precondition for first-in-first-out to happen at all.

The three red lines (relabeling, mixing batches, unlabeled skewers to the grill) are pulled out separately and set at "whole batch stops" severity because they are the bottom-line moves that cost pressure talks people into, exactly once: a leftover marinated batch plus a relabel saves real money this week. Because the motive is genuine, it takes an un-negotiable line standing in front of it - the person at the counter needs something to refuse with.

The shift handoff is squeezed to "three sentences" as the concession to reality. BBQ kitchens hand off with "it's all in the reach-in"; a ten-item handoff form will never be filled in. Three sentences (what batches remain tonight, what gets skewered first tomorrow, which item needs chasing) is a length that actually gets spoken. The enemy of an SOP is never incompleteness - it is non-execution, and every design choice here has to pass the test "will this really happen tomorrow morning?"

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