Last Minute Christmas Tri-Tip

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grumblecat

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 16, 2014
10
10
Sacramento CA
Decided sometime early on Christmas Eve that I was going to do that pesky tri-tip from the freezer on Christmas. Thawed, added a little standard SPOG rub and put it on the WSM 30 for about 1:20 to an IT of 135. Did a bit of a sear afterword but was afraid to let it go more than a minute each side for fear of taking it up too high.

I smoked it with a combination of cherry and pecan pellets in the AMNPS. It is only the 2nd tri-tip I've done but it was light years better than the 1st one. It finished so fast I ended up not knowing what to eat with it so just threw together some sauteed green beans with a bit of garlic and red pepper flakes. Not fancy but good.

Starting to think I'm learning things by lurking on here.

 
Great looking tri tip! They do cook fast. The last few I've run the smoker really low to get some good smoke then cranked it up for the finish and sear. I know that method just makes the traditional tri tip guys cringe, but it works really well. Cherry pecan is my favorite for beef!
 
I cooked it at about 255 or so. That seemed to be where the MES was happy yesterday so I just went with it. I really wanted to do brisket but because of the great Arby's shortage of 2014 I wasn't willing to pay more than $6.00 per pound for something that cost half that at the start of the year before Arby's decided to buy 5% of the total brisket output of the US over the summer.
 
Looks great! Yeah tri-tips finish pretty quick. Something I was considering for my next tri-tip is puting it in the smoker and letting the AMNPS blow smoke on it for about an hour or two before turning the MES on, because every one I've done has finished to 130 in about an hour and not much smoke flavor. At least that way I could get 3 hours of smoke on it. A little nervous to try that for safety reasons but I think it should be ok if it goes in straight out of the fridge since a lot of people let there beef come up to room temp for an hour or so anyways.
 
Mmmmm tritip!! Nice work, I'll second cherry/pecan for beef and chicken in my case. Remember practice makes perfect!!!
 
Looks great! Yeah tri-tips finish pretty quick. Something I was considering for my next tri-tip is puting it in the smoker and letting the AMNPS blow smoke on it for about an hour or two before turning the MES on, because every one I've done has finished to 130 in about an hour and not much smoke flavor. At least that way I could get 3 hours of smoke on it. A little nervous to try that for safety reasons but I think it should be ok if it goes in straight out of the fridge since a lot of people let there beef come up to room temp for an hour or so anyways.

This is a method I use all the time with cuts of beef, including steaks. I start with no heat just smoke, then ramp up the temp. I will start with the heat around 180, them just let the smoker ramp up on it's own.
 
Great job.

Every chance I get I do the warm smoke @ 150° till the meat gets to 125° then remove and allow the fire to get real hot and then sear the meat. At home I use mostly oak that I have seasoned from trimmings and at work we have several flavors of pellets, I like oak and orange best.
 
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