Tri Tip in Australia Advice required!

I've only done one (weird for someone in California, I know) but if I remember correctly you treat it like a regular cut of beef as far as IT goes - not like a brisket. I think it is traditionally cooked over red oak (Sta. Maria style) & I don't know what the traditional rub is. I'm sure some western Brethren who know more than I do will be along shortly to sort you out. Good luck and looking forward to the pron!

My favorite way is salt and pepper and leave it nice and rare and slice it thin. So many possibilities.

I do mine with equal parts salt, pepper and granulated garlic/garlic powder. Internal temp should be 135 for med rare, be sure to turn if you are grilling direct. Slice against the grain after a 10-15 min rest.

I have exactly one under my belt:icon_blush:, salt, pepper, cayenne. Reverse sear, seared, pulled rare. Not too shabby.

Heavy on the garlic powder
Lots of black pepper
Salt

I also add a bit of cumin and pakrika, I cook tri-tips weekly and always over oak.

I use a traditional Santa Maria style rub:
3 tsp kosher salt, and 2 tsp each of coarse pepper, granulated garlic and dried parsley.

Then reverse sear or direct/indirect until internal of 135 over oak. Rest for 20 minutes or so and slice against the grain. I treat tri-tip like a good rib-eye steak; I don't get too fancy and let the meat do the talking.

Ill tell you how I do it, Im reluctante to thou due to all the experiance on this board , I feel like a catholic school boy getting ready to take the ruler swat from the penguins.
The way i do it is I trim most of the fat off and coat with a montreal sesoning and let sit 2-4 hours better overnite , then I sear it on all sides then cook it on indirect heat at 275 to 300 degrees until it reaches 125 degrees then put it back onto a very hot fire for 5 minutes then pull off and put in a tub with towels over it for 20-30 minutes to rest.It is a perfect medium rare at this point. Then slice at 1/4" or a little less for sandwichs with garlic cheese bread.

Sear, super hot, then indirect till you get 135 IT, rest for 10 minutes. Slice against the grain, eat.

BTW, The butcher carved it up kind of funky. Looks like a super thick flap meat.

It is an outstanding cut that responds to all manner of treatment. The traditional method, a rub of salt, pepper, chile powder and some celery seed, maybe some powdered garlic will work great. Sear hot, then move to offset heat and roast until desired temperature.

I now do reverse sear and I like it a lot, smoke for an hour, over 225F until 125F in the middle, then sear until 130F to 135F in the middle. http://smoke-n-brew.blogspot.com/2010/06/tri-tip-and-catering.html

Here is a post.
And another

Congrats on getting some tri-tip down under! It's a really great cut of meat I think you will really enjoy. As with any cut of beef with strong muscle striations, you don't want to cook it past medium at the most or it will be tough. I usually pull mine when it reaches 130-135 internal at the thickest point. Keep rub/seasoning simple.

Some really good feedback from Landarc on cooking techniques. I've been an advocate of the reverse sear for a number of years. One of the best qualities of this technique is that the meat will be much more evenly cooked throughout, and absent the nasty "grey ring" one gets with the old style of searing the meat first.

Here's a link to one of my tri-tip cooks you also might find helpful:

/www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73593

landarc said:

It is an outstanding cut that responds to all manner of treatment. The traditional method, a rub of salt, pepper, chile powder and some celery seed, maybe some powdered garlic will work great. Sear hot, then move to offset heat and roast until desired temperature.

I now do reverse sear and I like it a lot, smoke for an hour, over 225F until 125F in the middle, then sear until 130F to 135F in the middle.

Here is a post.
And another

Click to expand...

Saiko said:

I use a traditional Santa Maria style rub:
3 tsp kosher salt, and 2 tsp each of coarse pepper, granulated garlic and dried parsley.

Then reverse sear or direct/indirect until internal of 135 over oak. Rest for 20 minutes or so and slice against the grain. I treat tri-tip like a good rib-eye steak; I don't get too fancy and let the meat do the talking.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with the above. Treat this like a thick steak and make sure you slice across the grain.

smoothsmoke said:

sear, super hot, then indirect till you get 135 it, rest for 10 minutes. Slice against the grain, eat.

Btw, the butcher carved it up kind of funky. Looks like a super thick flap meat.

Click to expand...

+1000000

I feel the need to chime in at this point as it relates to reverse sear vs. indirect:

These two photos illustrate the difference between using a direct sear first vs. a reverse sear. There's a big difference between the two in the final outcome, especially as it relates to evenness of cooking and overall juiciness:

Direct sear:



Reverse Sear:



Notice the grey ring in the outer part of the first pic. This is what happens when you take a piece of meat (particularly a larger size roast like a tri-tip) and sear it first over high heat. By the time the roast is done, you have an outer layer of overcooked, tough meat. In addition, it has been demonstrated in numerous test kitchen experiments that the reverse sear resulted in a significantly lower loss of juiciness than direct sear.

I used to do the direct sear for many years as it was the standard of how to grill meat, but I have to say, since I've been doing the reverse sear method, I'll never go back.

Just sayin'...

Moose said:

I feel the need to chime in at this point as it relates to reverse sear vs. indirect:

These two photos illustrate the difference between using a direct sear first vs. a reverse sear. There's a big difference between the two in the final outcome, especially as it relates to evenness of cooking and overall juiciness:

Direct sear:

Reverse Sear:

Notice the grey ring in the outer part of the first pic. This is what happens when you take a piece of meat (particularly a larger size roast like a tri-tip) and sear it first over high heat. By the time the roast is done, you have an outer layer of overcooked, tough meat. In addition, it has been demonstrated in numerous test kitchen experiments that the reverse sear resulted in a significantly lower loss of juiciness than direct sear.

I used to do the direct sear for many years as it was the standard of how to grill meat, but I have to say, since I've been doing the reverse sear method, I'll never go back.

Just sayin'...

Click to expand...

I am a believer!!!

One thing to remember when slicing is the direction of the grain changes, so you have to watch to make sure you are cutting against the grain.

Moose - nice work on the pron there!

To play devils advocate here. Perhaps the grey is not noticeable on the reverse sear because it was cooked indirect first, so it developed a pink smoke ring instead of the grey???

Just throwing that thought out there. I've never reverse seared. I'm intrigued by the method.

Smoothsmoke said:

To play devils advocate here. Perhaps the grey is not noticeable on the reverse sear because it was cooked indirect first, so it developed a pink smoke ring instead of the grey???

Just throwing that thought out there. I've never reverse seared. I'm intrigued by the method.

Click to expand...

Good and valid point. Given that the Tri-Tip I cooked in the second pic was only lightly smoked and cooked at pretty high heat, the smoke ring is nominal, so what you are seeing is meat that is evenly cooked through and through.

But that's just MY opinion, so let's approach this logically:

Theorem:

If you cook meat indirect FIRST, you are essentially roasting the meat at an even temperature. Provided the meat is completely at room temperature when you put it on the grill, it will cook more evenly throughout. However, when you direct sear, you cook the outer portion of the meat more quickly, while the inner portion cooks more slowly. The end result will be meat that is significantly more done than the inside portion.

Proof:

Experiments in numerous test kitchens were conducted to see whether meat initially seared over high heat sealed in the juices to create a juicier piece of meat. Conventional wisdom taught this for years, with the rationale that searing meat initially over high heat would create a crust that would keep the meat juicier inside. Unfortunately, this method did not produce juicier meat, but instead, had considerably more moisture loss than indirect cooking.

Conclusion:

Despite what we've been taught about searing meat first, doing so will always result in a less evenly cooked and less juicy piece of meat. Period.

If any of you happen to disagree at this point, if you haven't tried doing a reverse sear first, then please do so to compare the two, and see the difference. I would also suggest to any and all doubters out there to google these keywords:

"Chris Finney reverse sear"

Do a little reading and I think you'll be more than convinced, but again try it yourself and the results will speak for themselves.

To quote directly about Chris Finney:

[FONT=&quot]Bucking traditional cooking thoughts, Chris pioneered the “Reverse Sear” method of cooking. Traditional thinking has it that you sear a steak or roast (to seal in juices) and then reduce temps to finish cooking but doing research Chris found the opposite to be true. Searing the meat damages the cell walls and releases moisture, but roasting alone didn’t add a lot of flavor like the searing did. What about searing after the meat was cooked? “That’s just crazy talk”… but exactly what he found that you need to do. For more than 3 yrs Chris tried to get fellow cooks to try his method of cooking steaks and roasts with little success until… Unbeknownst to them, “Cooks Illustrated” and “America’s Test Kitchen” proved out “The Method” in 2007 using an oven and then a cast iron skillet. And, Alton Brown used basically the same method for cooking rib roasts in the oven. Now ceramic grill users are finding the benefit of the “Reverse Sear” because it is easier (and faster) to raise the temp in a ceramic cooker than lower it. In 2007 a Florida newspaper touted the advantages of using “The Finney Method” in an article called “To Sear, or not to Sear”.[/FONT]

So, let me put a little wrench into the works, a lot of folks think that the old style Santa Maria cooking is all about searing first then cooking over coals at a lower heat. This is, in fact, not really true of all styles of Santa Maria cooking. I learned from several folks in that area and just north, up north of Nipomo and east of San Luis Obispo, these folks cook without searing at all. The coal bed is developed with a hot and a cold end, the meat is placed in such a manner that it heats slowly and evenly for the entire cook. The meats are moved to cooler or hotter areas depending on internal temperature desired and degree of coloring on the outside.

Yes, fixed grate, pit style, coastal oak only, tri-tip and ball-tip, chicken and flap, all cooked together. The whole argument about hot sear versus reverse sear is a development based upon our need to use small cookers with limitations inherent to these types of cookers. Whatever gets you the piece of meat you most like is the way to go. Slice across the grain is key though.