Time for my weekly smoking project. This week, I smoked up half a dozen tri-tip roasts for a family birthday party.
Started with 6x 2-2.5 lbs tri-tip roasts that were marinated in a bottled "carne asada" sauce and crushed garlic, overnight.
A pile of beef, ready for the smoker!
Got the smoker up to about 250° using a mixture of roughly 50% Oak pellets to 50% Hickory pellets.
The tri-tips smoked for about 2 1/2 hours, before I opened up the smoker, took a picture (below), and flipped the roasts.
At this point, I cranked the smoker up to about 340° for 20 minutes to get a good caramelization of the sugars (and a light sear) on the roasts, and to finish bringing them up to an internal temp of 145° on 3 roasts for the true meat lovers in the group
, 155° on 2 more for the mid-westerners in the family who cook their beef DONE
, and 160° on the last roast, for those who like to chew their meat for hours on end
After a brief (1 hour) rest wrapped in foil, towels, and placed in a ice chest that had been warming in the sun, we sliced 'em up and ate 'em.
They were very tasty, had a pleasant smoky flavor, and had about a 1/4" pink smoke ring around the entire roast. The roasts stayed quite moist, and even the roast that was cooked to 160° was tender, moist and delicious.
They turned out so well that everyone 'forgot' there was a chafing dish full of chicken right next to the tri-tip!
Somehow, I think I just got myself elected as official caterer for all future family functions
Lessons learned from this smoke:
~Robert
Started with 6x 2-2.5 lbs tri-tip roasts that were marinated in a bottled "carne asada" sauce and crushed garlic, overnight.
A pile of beef, ready for the smoker!
Got the smoker up to about 250° using a mixture of roughly 50% Oak pellets to 50% Hickory pellets.
The tri-tips smoked for about 2 1/2 hours, before I opened up the smoker, took a picture (below), and flipped the roasts.
At this point, I cranked the smoker up to about 340° for 20 minutes to get a good caramelization of the sugars (and a light sear) on the roasts, and to finish bringing them up to an internal temp of 145° on 3 roasts for the true meat lovers in the group
After a brief (1 hour) rest wrapped in foil, towels, and placed in a ice chest that had been warming in the sun, we sliced 'em up and ate 'em.
They were very tasty, had a pleasant smoky flavor, and had about a 1/4" pink smoke ring around the entire roast. The roasts stayed quite moist, and even the roast that was cooked to 160° was tender, moist and delicious.
They turned out so well that everyone 'forgot' there was a chafing dish full of chicken right next to the tri-tip!
Somehow, I think I just got myself elected as official caterer for all future family functions
Lessons learned from this smoke:
- The rear of my smoker is hotter than the front, making it pretty easy to bring the roasts to 3 different internal temps, in roughly the same cooking time.
- Even after an overnight marinade, I should probably give the meat an additional dry rub. While flavorful and moist, the tri-tips needed a bit of salt to bring out the flavor of the beef.
- A good quick sear in the last 15 minutes of cooking gave a great caramelized, slightly seared surface to the roasts - adding a TON of flavor!
~Robert