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tri-tip long and slow?

jkraus
jkraus Posts: 7
edited November -0001 in EggHead Forum
Hi,

wondering if a tri-tip should be slow cooked, seem to find varying opinions. A common cut in CA, but mostly done fast over the grill, and was wondering if it would be enhanced with long slow indirect cooking?

Thx

Joe
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Comments

  • civil eggineer
    civil eggineer Posts: 1,547
    Generally low and slow is appropriate for tougher pieces of meat with a lot of fat and sinew (sp?). The low heat is necessary to break that down into tender succulent meat. Steaks and other relatively low fat meats need to be seared and cooked rapidly to prevent them from drying out as they lack the fat for self basting. Anyhow that is my philosophy and I'm sticking to it!
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  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Tri-Tip has little to no connective tissue, and connective tissue is what contains the collagen that breaks down into gelatin and and makes low and slow cooked cuts moist. That amazing mouthfeel from ribs or a nice butt? Gelatin.

    Since tri-tip has very little collagen (essentially none), low and slow does not favor it - it will lead to drying out. That's not to say it can't be done though, you just have to compensate in other ways. I have a friend from west texas that smokes tri-tip for 5-6 hours really cool (200 or so), which gives it great flavor, but leaves the meat (even the rarer parts) kinda dry. They serve it chopped up into really small pieces though, which is apparently a houston/west texas thing. When you put the little minced meat on a sandwich with some bbq sauce, it doesn't feel the least bit tough since a lot of the 'chewing' is already done.

    The best cooking method I've worked out for tri-tip is dead simple - it's basically a reverse TREX. I haven't done this on my egg yet - my chargriller has to have something to do ;-).

    What you do is bring the meat to room temp with a good 1-2 hour sit on the counter (if you have a good marinade that doesn't screw up tri-tip meat, use it*).

    Put the roast away from the coals (on a non-egg) or in the egg at ~200-220* over indirect heat. Bring the roast up to 90-95* internal temp (huge roasts should be closer to 95, babies 90), and then pull it and wrap in foil and a towel for a little rest.

    Bring your egg up to searing temperature while the roast is resting (600+) and then put it back on to sear for 5 minutes/side, flipping until the roast is at 125**, then pull and rest.

    This results in your roast having the thickest pink center and smallest brown/grey 'well done' ring you've ever seen...


    A few notes about Tri-Tip
    * Marinades that include lots of 'tenderizer' will turn tri-tip to mushy mealy garbage that cannot be saved by any cooking method.
    ** I know it's a cliche, but it's doubly true with tri-tip - if it's not pink, don't bother. Tri-tip dries out very quickly after you move past medium-rare/medium, but if you have some people that insist on well done, slice the roast up, then finish (destroy) some of the slices on the grill or in a ci pan.
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