Mesquite smoked Tri-Tip

Well almost. I picked up an electric smoker figuring I could put meat in at work for the afternoon and have it ready when I went home. Transportation is not a problem as when slow cooking beef it is a good idea to take it off about 10° early, wrap it in foil and then towels and place it in a cooler for an hour or so to finish it off.

First the things that went poorly. I have done tri-tips in the oven at 200° and they have taken 4-5 hours. This one was done in 72 minutes. Good thing I had a temperature probe with an alarm in it or I would have totally ruined it. When smoking with wood chips you should have the meat exposed to smoke for the first three hours, haven't figured out how to squeeze that into 72 minutes. Because the meat temp ramped up so quickly a lot of the fat/juices cooked out of it. Where I grew up tri-tips were cooked over oak for several hours and I may never have the set up to replicate that, not to mention I can no longer find tri-tip with the layer of fat that should be present. I can seal the juices in by searing it (which I cannot do at work) but then it would also seal out the smoke. I had planned on working all afternoon while the meat cooked but the short cooking time sort of messed that up.

The not so bad part. The meat came out a perfect medium. It actually sat in the cooler for 3 hours and was still at a servable warmth although I think it would have been better to slice and serve it after 2 hours. Though not as juicy and tender as I would have liked it was perfectly edible and I had 3 meals and 5 sandwiches out of it. I still have 6 more tri-tips in the freezer to play with. I had the smoker set at 210° and will try it at 190° after testing it and finding out it runs 10° hotter that it indicates.

This cryovac yielded 7 tri-tips and I trimmed enough off the ends to make a big batch of stroganof.



This is the smoker. A Masterbuilt 30.



And this is the pile of meat. :-)