Smoking a Tri-tip

A week ago, I decided to try my hand at smoking meat. I had seen a couple of videos where guys had done some smoking in-camp and in their backyards and figured I'd give it a go. Starting simple, I went with a short smoke option — a tri-tip steak. Also, I only have an 18" Weber grill, so I had to get creative and poke around the internet to see how others had done it before.

I started by making my own spice rub, then I cut the fat cap from the meat and slathered on some Guinness mustard from Red Top Oven, a local condiment maker at Farmers Market of the Ozarks. The mustard acts as glue for the spices.

I lit my coals, got a pan of water ready and soaked my hickory chips for a couple of hours before that. After lightly searing the meat on both sides, I set it on the opposite side of the coals to smoke (see video at bottom of post).

About 1:45 minutes later, I had some pretty kick-ass homemade BBQ. I actually overcooked it a hair, I was shooting for more of a medium rare, but went over on my temps some. It was still really good at more of a medium.

At the end of the smoke, I still had enough coals and the setup ready that I decided to smoke the Horrmann Meat Co. brats and dogs I had for the BBQ later that evening (the tri-tip also came from Horrmann). They came out just as well as the tri-tip, smoking them about 45 minutes a side before searing them over the coals towards the end.

We had a few people over that evening and very little food leftover the next day, so I'll count that as quite a success. :)