Th Step: Its Grill Time
Youre a step closer to eating, but here is the fun part.
Voila! Youre almost done!
What Is A Tri
Tri-tip steak is steak from a tri-tip roast, a triangular-shaped cut from the bottom sirloin. It may be called bottom sirloin steak or Santa Maria steak because it was popularized in California. The boneless roast is usually cut into one-inch-thick steaks, a perfect size for grilling or searing in a cast-iron pan.
Like other sirloin cuts, tri-tip steak is lean, so you wont find the same fat cap thats on a ribeye or New York strip. Tri-tip is well-marbled, though, so it should have plenty of white flecks of intramuscular fat. Put it all together and the result is a steak with a rich, beef-forward flavor you wont find in other cuts.
If you cant find tri-tip steak at the grocery store, use the opportunity to visit your local butcher. They can usually special-order cuts like tri-tip upon request.
Beef Temperature Cooking Chart
- Medium Rare: 130-140 degrees F
- Medium: 140-150 degrees F
- Medium Well: 150-160 degrees F
- Well Done: 160 degrees F
You can or use your favorite dry rub to season your Tri Tip if you wish, but we like to keep it simple and go with a liberal amount of salt and pepper. Thats it! This is exactly how we cook this for events, and weve always received high praise for this smoky deliciousness.
*Serve Tri Tip with these smoked collard greens or top with this chimichurri sauce.
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How To Sear Tri Tip
The final step is a high heat sear to lock in all of those juices and get a gorgeous crust on the exterior of the meat. I like to do this step in a really hot cast iron skillet with some sizzling butter, but you can also sear your smoked tri tip on a gas grill to get some lovely grill marks on the exterior.
If youre up for trying something new, and you want to cook tri tip from start to finish in a cast-iron skillet, check out this recipe for Cast Iron Tri Tip Roast.
Which Wood Pellets Are Best For Tri Tip
Since tri tip is naturally loaded with strong beefy flavor, it can stand up to even the strongest of smokey flavor.
So with that in mind, I like to use stronger flavored wood pellets for my pellet grill smoked tri tip oak or hickory pellets specifically are my favorite for pellet grill tri tip.
If you really like strong smokey flavor and want stronger smoke than oak or hickory, mesquite pellets also pair really nicely with tri tip!
Personally, I do not use lighter woods or fruitwood pellets for tri tip, simply because they dont impart enough flavor into the beef for my taste. But if you want to keep the smoke flavor muted, something like cherry or apple wood pellets are a perfectly viable option.
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Grilled Tri Tip Recipe
This recipe was created for you, backyard griller! Here at Hey Grill Hey, were in the business of helping you make better BBQ, feed the people you love, and become a backyard BBQ hero. You can find more of my smoking and grilling recipes here on my website on , , or our .
This post was originally published in June 2019. We recently updated it with more information and helpful tips. The recipe remains the same.
What Temperature Do You Grill Tri
If you want the grill temperature to be hot, keep it at 250F to 300F. Cover the grill and cook until the tri-tips internal temperature reaches 120F for a rare roast, 130F for a medium-rare roast, and 140F for a medium-rare roast, finishing when the temperature of the tri-tips interior reaches 120
A Tri-tip steak is a lean and juicy cut from the bottom of the sirloin that has a powerful flavor. To get the best results, it must be given more time and attention to its uneven thickness and Boomerang shape. This unique cut was created in the 1950s in Santa Maria, California. To make the best tender and juicy tri-tip, start with moderate heat and cook the meat close to its pull temperature . To learn more about how to set up a two-zone fire, including indirect heat: Sweet Stuffed Pork Loin, visit our post Indirect Heat: Sweet Stuffed Pork Loin. Resting is always a good idea when it comes to large steaks, but this large one is especially important due to its high protein content. Other cuts, such as the tenderloin, have thin protein fibers that make it easier to retain the juices.
You can catch juices by using a carving board with grooves. Because of its triangle shape, it is a difficult cut. This unevenly shaped cut of meat can be grilled two ways, guided by careful temperature control, to reach its best tender and juicy results. Remove the tri tip from the grill once the internal temperature reaches 125-130F for medium rare doneness.
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How Often Should You Flip Tri Tip
Season the tri tip on all sides with the rub before placing it on the grill over indirect heat. Grill the tri tip over indirect heat for 6-7 minutes per side, turning halfway through. After each time you turn the roast, liberally apply mopping liquid to the surface. The tri tip should be grilled until the interior temperature reaches 120 degrees Fahrenheit .
Temperature Trumps Time On The Grill
If youre grilling without an instant-read thermometer, its time to elevate your grilling game and stop guessing about doneness. Great grilling or barbecue relies more on temperature than time. There are so many variables, any grilling recipe depending on time alone will always be a shot in the dark.
- When the thicker, middle portion reaches medium-rare, the thinner ends will be closer to medium.
As you can see in the photo below, the temperature of the tapered ends is almost 10 degrees higher than the middle, taken at the same time.
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How Long Does It Take To Grill Tri
Cooking Time for Tri-Tip at 350 degrees Fahrenheit As a result, tri-tip should be cooked for around 30 minutes per pound of meat. This characteristic indicates that a normal 2-pound tri-tip will take around an hour to cook, but a 2.5-pound tri-tip would take approximately 90 minutes to prepare.
Selecting The Perfect Tri
Depending on regional availability, tri-tip can be an economical cut of steak for weekend grilling or entertaininggrilled as a whole roast or sliced into steaks.
Its a triangular muscle located on each side of the cow just under the bottom sirloin . If unavailable in your area, U.S. Wellness Meats is a quality source.
Tri-tip ranges from very lean to overly fatty .
- Look for roasts or steaks with visible streaks of fat running through the meat indicating a well-marbled, flavorful cut. If the roast is closely trimmed, you can see the white streaks across the muscle within the grain of the meat.
- Some roasts are sold untrimmed, which means a fairly thick layer of fat is left on the muscle on one side. If this exterior fat cap is thicker than 1/4 inch, trim to a little less than 1/4 thick.
NOTE: Exterior fat does little to flavor the meat, it is the interior fat, referred to as marbling, in the meat that enhances the flavor.
TIP: Trimming the exterior fat will help minimize flare-ups yet retain enough fat to protect the meat from drying out on the grill. Visit Virtual Weber Bullet to see a trimmed and untrimmed photo.
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Which Way Is The Grain On Tri
When cutting a tri tip, the grain follows a radial path from the corner that is opposite the bend in the flesh. To put it another way, cutting a piece in half from corner to crook and then slicing each piece produces the greatest results. To see a visual instruction to chopping up this succulent piece of beef, watch the video embedded below!
But First What Is Tri
A tri-tip roast comes from the bottom sirloin and is called tri tip because of the three different points on the ends of the crescent-shaped cut of beef. It has big beefy flavor, and is a very lean cut of meat.
Most tri-tip roasts typically weigh between 1.5 to 3 pounds, although you can find some that are even a little larger than this. Tri-tip is easy to find in any grocery store or butcher shop on the West Coast, but I’ve heard that in other parts of the country you might need to ask your butcher to keep it whole for you rather than cutting it into steaks.
The grain of the tri-tip goes in two different directions, which is important to know because you need to slice the meat against the grain after it is cooked to a perfect medium-rare in order to get the most tender bites.
Unlike other roasts that you cook low-and-slow to break down connective tissues , Santa Maria-style tri-tip barbecue cooks fast over an open flame until medium-rare.
Traditionally, it’s cooked over red oak, which is plentiful around the Santa Maria area of California, but this tri-tip is still delicious even if all you have is a gas grill.
Tri-tip leftovers make the most delicious salads and sandwiches, so I always try to make sure we have enough for extra. It’s easy to scale up and make more than one tri-tip depending on the size of the group you are planning to feed, but one tri-tip typically feeds our family of 4 for 2-3 meals depending on how we use the leftovers.
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What Size Tri Tip To Smoke
Youll find them range from 1 ½ to 3 pounds. We like them somewhere around the 2 pound range. Because its so lean its important to not overcook it. We see a lot of Tri-Tip recipes where folks will smoke it for several hours.
In our experience weve found that is not necessary because the intramuscular tissue is not dense like brisket nor does it need hours to render large fat pockets. But if you want to do a brisket style tri tip go for it.
How Long To Grill A Tri
Tri-Tip steak has got to be the most underrated steak out there.
Why? Because its packed with flavor and its CHEAPER compared to the other popular cuts of steak.
But first…how long does it take to grill a tri-tip? It depends how cooked you want it to be! For a full answer, our guide will answer all your questions!
Well even show you the best and fool-proof method to get the most flavorful, juiciest steak ever in just a couple of minutes!
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Brief History Of Santa Maria Tri
I found two different origin stories for “authentic” Santa Maria tri-tip and couldn’t figure out which is actually true, so I’ll share them both here.
In one, the story is that a California butcher in the 1950’s named Bob Schutz had too much ground beef and stew meat, so he took the bottom sirloin typically used for chopping or grinding and roasted it on a rotisserie. Allegedly, he was the one who started calling this cut of meat tri-tip and the rest is history.
The other story is that the Mexican cowboys and workers in the Santa Maria region would get the less desirable parts of the cattle, including the bottom sirloin, and they were the ones who figured out how to grill it quickly and slice it thin against the grain for tender, juicy bites of perfectly seasoned meat.
Regardless, whoever came up with this method for cooking this particular cut of meat was a genius because it is so incredibly delicious and never fails to satisfy guests.
Dry Rub For Flavor And Crust
A dry mixture of salt, pepper, dried herbs, or spices used to add flavor and texturethe seasoning works to form a crust. It is the salt in the dry rub that truly penetrates the meat beyond the surface. Other seasonings in the rub will flavor the outer edges.
- Salt needs 40 minutes to penetrate and flavor the meat, so dry rubs should be allowed to rest on the meat for at least 40 minutes before grilling. Otherwise, apply just before placing it on the grill.
Dry Rub TIP:A good rule of thumb is 1 tablespoon of rub per pound of meat, depending on how salty the rub tastes raw. If you taste it straight from the package and you only taste salt, go with a little less. If the salt is pleasant and savory enhancing other flavors, the 1 tablespoon rule works.
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How Long Should A Tri
Allow it to sit on your counter for at least 1 hour with the lid still on so that the meat may get to room temperature before cooking it. It is more juicy and tender when the meat is allowed to come to room temperature before cooking or frying.
Indirect Heat: Grilling Tri
Tri-tip is a lean and juicy cut from the bottom of the sirloin that boasts big, beefy flavor. Its boomerang shape and uneven thickness require a little extra TLC for the best results. The secret to getting this tender, flavorful cut just right is in the grilling method, and temperature tracking is critical every step of the way. Keep reading for the key temps you need, and grill one up tonight!
Tri-tip pull temp: 125°F for medium rare
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How Long Does It Take To Cook A Tri
Grill at a temperature of 250-300 degrees Fahrenheit for 250-300 minutes with the seared meat on the indirect heat side of the grill covered. Cook for around 20 to 30 minutes, or until the beef reaches a beautiful medium-rare temperature of 130 degrees F on an instant read meat thermometer, depending on your preference.
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Try to keep the grill temperature between 250°F and 300°F at all times. To complete cooking, cover the pan with a lid: Cover the grill and cook until the internal temperature of the tri-tip reaches 120°F for a rare roast, 130°F for medium-rare, and 140°F for medium-rare, or until the tri-tip is cooked through.
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Do You Cook A Tri Tip Fat Side Up Or Down
When it comes to cattle, Tri-Tip refers to a special cut of the loin butt that has a triangle form. When properly seasoned and cooked on the BBQ, it has a texture and flavor that is nothing short of perfection when done correctly. According to the Tri-Tip page on WikiHow, you should cook the beef with the fat side down on the BBQ.
How To Slice Tri Tip
Tri tip will have two directions for the grains due to where it is butchered. Following the rule of slicing against the grain, start slicing the thin tail end. Then as you get closer to the thicker side, rotate the tri tip 90 degrees and continue slicing.
Slicing against the grain is important to keep the cellular connectivity which in turn helps keep the tender texture and moisture. If you slice with the grain, the taste will be slightly chewy because you are breaking the cells by slicing with the grain, and all the liquid they absorbed comes right out.
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Choose Your Cooking Method
If you own a charcoal grill or gas grill, going that route for cooking a tri-tip roast can be grate . Otherwise, smoked tri-tip roast or oven-roasted tri-tip can also result in pitmaster-quality meat.
Here’s how to cook tri-tip using any of these methods.
How to Cook Tri-Tip in the Oven
Oven-roasted tri-tip is the best way to cook tri-tip in colder months when you can stay cozy and enjoy the mouthwatering aromas indoors. To roast tri-tip, start by choosing a roasting pan that’s the right size for the job. It should be a large shallow pan with a rack inside. The pan sides should be 2 to 3 inches tall. If you don’t have a roasting pan, you can use a 13×9-inch baking pan with an oven-safe wire rack set inside.
These instructions for cooking tri-tip roast are for how long to cook tri-tip in the oven at 425°F, which allows for a nice medium-cooked middle and browned exterior. As this cut is fairly lean, we don’t recommend cooking it beyond medium doneness.
How to Grill Tri-Tip Roasts
Cooking tri-tip roasts on the grill is a nice way to infuse more flavor while keeping your kitchen cool.
