Foiling and the Cooler

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socalbbq

Fire Starter
Original poster
Jun 4, 2011
68
14
Roseville, CA
New member and just last weekend I put together my Brinkmann Trailmaster LE.  I cured per the instructions and am ready to take her out for a test drive this weekend in preparation for a big Father's Day get together.  I am looking at doing Tri Tips.  I know from my past grilling experience to let the meat rest, but I see quite ofter people who foil wrap and place in cooler for several hours.  Can anyone part with some wisdom on this and time ranges for Tri's and how long can they rest in cooler before serving?

Thank you,
 
I have never been able to find Tri Tip around here at a reasonable price so I have never cooked one but I know you don't want to over cook them you want them to be medium to medium/rare which would be around the 140 rage. Foiling and coolering meat will keep it warm for hours and hours and can come in very handy not only to help make your meat nice and juicy/tender but also to keep your meat warm until you are ready to eat it.
 
Tri-tip only needs to rest for 10-15 minutes, so the juices redistribute back to the center. Brisket & pork butt are the cuts of meat that will further break down foiled & in a cooler. This is not necessary with tri-tip. I would take it off the smoker at 125 for rare or 135 for med. rare. I would not cook it past medium.
 
Tri-tip only needs to rest for 10-15 minutes, so the juices redistribute back to the center. Brisket & pork butt are the cuts of meat that will further break down foiled & in a cooler. This is not necessary with tri-tip. I would take it off the smoker at 125 for rare or 135 for med. rare. I would not cook it past medium.


Al,

I would have to disagree with you a little bit. You can rest them for only 10-15 minutes but you still get alot of juice run off because they haven't rested enough. IMO if you rest for 30minutes to a hour its better. I pull them at 130-135max and let them rest. They will continue to cook and after about a hour they are perfect. The middle is more med-med rare and the outer edges are more med-med well so you can feed all pallets.
 
Depending on the size of the tri-tip you get rest it somewhere between 15 min. to as long as an hour. But like Rbranstner said you are not cooking it beyond med. rare for the most part. If you were doing a pork butt or a brisket, then you would be looking at a 1 hour or longer rest time.
 
Hey SoCal,

I've cooked them like all of the above, everyone has their preference, but I noticed you want to cook Tri-tips, one time I cooked some, pulled them at 135° and let them rest in a small cooler and the combined heat of the Tri-tips caused them to go past medium to almost well in an hour, you might want to monitor the temp while they are in the cooler so that they don't over cook.

Gene
 
Thank you all for the great advice.  I tend to like mine on the med-rare side so I'll monitor the temps very closely.  Trying out tomorrow as a test run for Father's day.  Thank you again,
 
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