Beef Loin Tips; My Plan, what would you change?

KiterTodd

I have a 6.5 lbs angus whole beef loin to cook Christmas Eve, and wanted to do a sanity check on the cook plan.
Did a little research here and came with the following;

I'll season it simply with olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary & garlic.  Tie up the thin end to get a more uniform thickness.
Cook raised indirect at 250 until an internal temp of around 115.
Pull, rest, crank the grill up to what, 500? 
Then put it back on raised direct for a sear.  Pulling around 135 for a finish medium-rare cook.
Rest, cut serve.

JustineCaseyFeldown

Tenderloin or loin?

if a loin, i'd roast only and not complicate things. Fat butns in  a sear. Better in my thinking tonshoot for a mahogany brown crisp crust versus blackish bits

But If tenderloin (tying the thin end impkies tenderloin to me) i would sear first and roast second

if you can do it on old lump (versus fresh), searing first and roasting immediately after is easy

old lump won't need to burn off the frsh VOC stink

Light it, set vents wide open (no daisy on top). And watch the thermo. When you get to temp and the grid is hot, toss the tenderloin on one aide of the grid. Roll it every couple minutes as it sears (rotate the grid so you are always over hot lump if you need to). Keep the lid OPEN. This allows the fire to stay on top of the coals and keeps the dome ceramic from getting hot and oicking up too much heat 

when seared to your liking pull it iff to rest. Toss in the plateesetter or indirect setup, and choke the vents

you will be at roast temps in just a few minutes, about the same time the 
tenderloin has had a chance to calm down

then roast to finish back in the BGE

catching the fire early to sear, and keeping the lid open, allows you to keep the ceramics cool (drop quickly back to roasting temp)

and searing first means you won't risk overshooting at the end. Especially if you roast at 225-250. Roasting at 350-400 will be easier after the sear. It may take longer than you want to drop down to 225-250. But you can always sear well in advance. Night before for ex

Foghorn

Agreed.  I'd probably pull at 130 as it will cook some more after you pull it off.

KiterTodd

Yes, it's a tenderloin.

I thought this would be a shoe-in for a reverse sear.  Interesting.

In any case, thanks for the detail @JustineCaseyFeldown !   

So, is the sear you descibe at grate level or raised?  Watch for what temp before I cook it open top?  I'm guessing this is an indication of that the fire has spread through the coals, but is not blazing full red.

In any case, this sounds good.  I like it. So after I get it how I like it, then throw in my indirect setup and roast at what temp?  250?  Any thoughts on rough time it would take to get up to MR?

JustineCaseyFeldown

You can reverse sear too 

it's just most like it rare, and putting the spurs to it at the end leaves you guessing how much carryover there will be, as it continues to cook from all that late high heat

Such a narrow window on a thin piece of meat. I would prefer to play safer. Sear,  rest/chill, roast

searing is searing. There's no real dome temp involved to worry about. If it is hot and able to sear you are good to go

grate level if you want to sear. Raising it just lessens the heat. Still searing, but the further away the lower the heat for searing. Longer it takes. Good if you want to dial back a bit and things get a little too hot, but to start that way just extends cook time

KiterTodd

Okay, tomorrow is the day.  Little nervous about screwing up an expensive lean cut (as you know, the fatty slow cooks I usually do are more forgiving).

Assuming I sear first... 
How long do you think at 250 for the rest of the cook?
It's a 6.2 lbs tenderloin.
I'm guessing about 90 minutes, as if I didn't do the sear it'd be about 2 hours.

I'm also double-thinking the garlic as sometimes it can get pretty strong.  No?
S, P, Rosemary...with some olive oil to make it all stick.

Pulling at 130 for a Medium-Rare finish.

Open to any changes. 

blind99

I'm cooking the same cut tomorrow, same size. I was planning to throw the damned thing in the oven and keep it simple. But this is almost inspiring me to fire up the egg and commiserate!

KiterTodd

blind99 said:

I'm cooking the same cut tomorrow, same size. I was planning to throw the damned thing in the oven and keep it simple. But this is almost inspiring me to fire up the egg and commiserate!

Oh yeah, you're pot committed now! 

(I did not find a lot of tenderloin advice on the forum, but this thread had some useful info)

KiterTodd

Was my first time buying a whole beef tenderloin...thus I didn't realize I had to clean it!  But, thanks to a little Googling, I'm happy with my first timer results;


Seasoned and resting up until tomorrow.  Reeeeeaaaalllly hoping I don't overcook this.


I brought the vacuum sealer out to freeze the trimmings (which I further cleaned into 3 nice pieces and some bits for stir fry), and figured since I had it out anyway, I'd seal up the loin until tomorrow.   S&P, little oil and couple cloves of garlic.