Smoked Tri-Tip
Tri-tip is one of those cuts of meat that most people have never heard of, or if they have, haven’t had the pleasure of trying. It’s relatively cheap, $7.99/pound for the one I purchased, which compared to steak is pretty cheap, particularly when it stacks up against just about any steak. You can make tri-tip any number of ways. Here’s Arthur’s take on the traditional Santa Maria style tri-tip which is where this cut first got popularized.
Arther flame seared his tri-tip and then baked it until it was done. I am reversing that order and baking mine first, during which time I’ll smoke the meat, before dropping it over the hot coals and searing it to get that flavor crust. This is called the reverse sear method. The benefits of this method is that once meat is seared, it doesn’t take on as much smoke flavor because the outside skin is too hot. Once it reaches between 140-160 degrees outside of the meat, it won’t take much smoke flavor. With this, I get the smoke flavor first, and then get that tasty flavor crust from the sear.
Let’s start off as to what a tri-tip is. It’s part of the bottom sirloin and is triangular shaped that generally runs about 1.5-2.5 pounds. As you can see the cut is indeed triangular, which is where it gets its name (it has three tips):
The cut was first popularized in Santa Maria, California, where they hit the cut with salt, black pepper, and maybe garlic and put over open flame, usually from red oak. Despite the fact that it was put on the map in California, it’s often referred to as a Texas tri-tip:
As you can see I picked this one up at Kenrick’s. It was completely on a whim. I was walking through the store and it looked outstanding so I picked one up. This could easily feed a family of four and is as good as anything but a dry aged steak. Not bad for under $5/person. I’m so glad I saw this in the case.
I took the cut out of the package and placed it on a cutting board to examine the meat:
This bit of fat in the middle was a little tough. No big deal. I trimmed it out:
Looks fantastic, right? On that side. Flipped over reveals some more trimming to be done:
That’s a little too thick to leave on there:
Time for a bigger knife than the paring knife in the above picture. This should do it:
It took a few minutes to clean all the away. In the end, it looked like this:
And a close up of the cut. Notice the patches of skin that looks a little like silver skin:
Don’t sweat that skin. It’s not silver skin. It’s not tough at all.
Now it’s time for a bath, or in this case marinade:
This is probably closer to a brine, considering the salt content of soy.
Brine Ingredients:
3/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
10 turns each of white and black pepper
Mix the ingredients together in a plastic bag along with the meat and put in the fridge for a couple hours to overnight. I brined this for about 3 hours before I took it out to come up to room temperature before going on the grill:
Pick whatever rub you want for this. I was craving something spicy and used a Brazilian Beef Rub as well as some smoked salt from Penzy’s:
All I did was gave the meat a light dusting on one side. More on that in a minute.
Feel free to use whatever rub you like. Looking back on how good the meat was, it really didn’t need the rub. It was so good that it didn’t need to have any spices other than salt, pepper, and a little garlic. Maybe the folks in Santa Maria know what they’re doing?
I set up the grill for two zone cooking with coals/smoke wood on one side and nothing on the other:
That’s oak wood. Oak, pecan and mesquite are the top three woods for beef, not necessarily in that order, depending on where you’re from.
So I put the meat on the side with no heat and dust the other side with the rub and smoked salt:
The reason I waited to hit the grill before seasoning the other side is that I’d waste half the seasoning if I did it on the cutting board where the moisture of the meat will cause all the rub and salt to stick to the cutting board and thus warrant a second application to the other side.
The wood caught fire while I rubbed the meat. Time to close the lid:
With the airflow constricted, the fire goes out and the wood smokes nicely:
Now I’m running about 225, but I want to run cooler:
See, I want to smoke this for 90 minutes and then sear it and still have it be medium rare inside. So I took some of the the coals out and tossed them onto another grill I had nearby:
That’s more like it:
At 40 minutes, or about halfway through the smoke process, here’s what the meat looks like:
It is still really, really spongy to the touch:
At the 1 hour mark I was out of smoke so I had to toss another chunk on:
The touch test revealed it was still pretty spongy, which is what I was hoping for. And with the extra chunk of wood, I got some great smoke:
At 90 minutes I had to add charcoal over the hot coals to get a big enough surface to sear the meat:
Once the new coals were ashed over and hot, the meat went over the heat for a quick sear:
There was nothing to this. Between 3-4 minutes on each side, right over the hot coals. The fire was so hot that it didn’t need any more than that. After both sides were seared, I pulled it from the heat to let it rest for 10 minutes:
Resting is vitally important to keeping meat juicy. The juices are in an excited state from the heat and moving throughout the cut at a million miles an hour. Slice into it right away and they will run all over the cutting board. Letting the meat rest will allow the juices to redistribute throughout the cut and ensure that they stay in the meat rather than run all over the cutting board as soon as the meat is sliced.
After 10 minutes, I sliced the meat and it looked like this:
We carved off slices of this against the grain and it was outstanding:
This was really fantastic. It was still pink and tender at the narrowest point where I expected it to be well done, but I shielded that part from the heat a bit, but having that just off the edge of the coals when I seared it. The smoke flavor was there, but not overpowering. The flavor crust had some heat to it from the rub, but didn’t necessarily need it. I really, really enjoyed this.
Next time I’ve got the folks or the in-laws coming over for some steak, I think this will be what I do for them. My mind is also working at other uses for tri-tip. It would be excellent in chili, fajitas, tacos, steak and eggs the next morning (if there’s any left), anything that you need some robust beef. I will be making this again very soon.
If you have any questions about tri-tip, feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.
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This looks very good and easy to follow. I will give this a shot soon (right after I tackle my first brisket). Thanks!!!
Hello Guys. I’ve used this cut of meat for several years. I discovered it from a friend of mine. And the method you use is just what I have been doing. I have also done it with out the sear and it still turns out great! Thanks for the site….you guys are on Fire…..lol. Very informative.
Thanks!