My first ever Beef Tri Tip

My first Tri Tip ever & it was delicious. In the 35+ yrs. I have been cooking I don’t ever remember seeing a beef Tri Tip roast at the groceries or meat markets around here. It was ground into hamburger usually. It first became popular in California around the Santa Maria area & became known as Santa Maria style Roast. There it is usually seasoned w/salt, pepper, & garlic then cooked over a red oak fire to desired doneness. I first heard of it on pelletheads forum from the CA people there. I looked for it here & ask my butcher about it. Other people must have ask him about it too, just awhile back I drove by & up on his sign was Tri Tip roasts. My butcher is also a Traeger dealer & where I buy my pellets. I stopped in & he had two frozen ones left so I bought the largest 2 1/2+ lbs. I had found a recipe awhile back that had equal amounts of coarse salt, ground pepper, dried garlic flakes, & dried parsley for the seasoning. I tried it on some rib eye steaks & just about as good as it gets, a great seasoning that lets the beef taste come through instead of overpowering it.

Yesterday I trimmed some of the fat on the Tri Tip, seasoned it up good, wrapped in saran wrap & in the fridge until ready to cook. I would have preferred to let it marinade overnight but it was in for a little over 5 hrs. I was going to rely on Big Poppa’s, from pelletsmoking.com, method. Smoke at 275 deg. until an IT of 142 deg then sear on a hot grill for 2 min a side. About 4:00 I mixed up some mac & cheese. I used 2 cups penne, cooked then added ½ can Campbells cheddar cheese soup, a couple hand full’s of Italian shredded cheese, some liquid from cooking the pasta & some half & half fat free cream & placed in a casserole dish. Later I added shredded cheddar to the top & some Panko bread crumbs over that. I took the Tri Tip from the fridge to rest at room temp. I preheated my Traeger to 300 deg Placed the roast directly on the grill, fat cap down, w/ temp probe inserted at 5 pm. I was figuring just over an hr for the roast so at 5:15 I put the mac & cheese in a 350 deg oven uncovered. At 6:00 I turned the oven to 170 deg to hold the mac & cheese. I preheated my Weber Q100 to sear the roast. After 1 ½ hrs. the roast was at 142 deg IT so pulled it & seared on the Weber 2 min on each side. I tented the roast w/foil for 10 min. before slicing & serving w/mac & cheese & a mixed Romaine salad my wife had prepared. On the salad we had Italian dressing & some shaved parmesan cheese.

The roast was very tender & tasty but a little too done for me. You can see some smoke penetration in the photo. I was running my Traeger at 250 deg since I know my grill temp runs about 25 deg hotter than the digital readout. Next time I think I would run it at 275deg to let the roast come up to temp a little quicker & pull it to sear when IT is 135 deg. For me the Tri Tip was the best cut of beef I have had in a long time.

Fat cap side

Lean side

Seasoned

On the smoker

After searing

Sliced

Plated supper

Smokin Don