Grilling Tri Tip

Just a great BBQ experience
Updated: January 2024

This is my favorite meat to grill up for a party. The strips can be served formally or as finger-food, there are options for doneness built into the shape of the cut, and it’s a cheaper cut of meat that can become quite tasty. Takes ~20-30 minutes to grill

Directions

Prep:

Tri tip doesn’t have a lot of flavor itself. But it’s got good fats, a nice texture, and takes on flavor really well, so I try to play to that with the marinade, rub and smoking chips.

  1. Get your instant read thermometer out
  2. Acquire a good grilling/BBQ dry rub, Terry Blacks is my current favorite
  3. Seriously, a rub makes a huge difference here. Don’t skip this step.
  4. Smoking chips (no preferences here, currently working through a random bag of mesquite chips)
  5. At least 4 hours beforehand, put the tri tip in a bag with some salt, pepper, oil, and any other seasonings you’re partial to. My very secret highly researched go to is soy sauce.
  6. Throw an handful of smoking chips in a little cup with a splash of water / your beer to improve how smokey they get.

Grill:

  1. Get the coals going
  2. Set the coals on one half of the grill so that there’s a direct heat side and an indirect heat side. I learned this technique from The Food Lab highly recommended.
  3. Cover the grill to get the grill hot
  4. Rub the tri tip thoroughly with your favorite rub
  5. Start with the meat over the indirect heat side with the fatty side down
  6. Throw on the smoking chips
  7. After about 10-15 min, rotate it horizontally. Keeping the fatty side down but with the other side of the meat closer to the coals.
  8. Flip it over after about 10 more min, keeping it on the indirect heat side.
  9. Do the same rotation thing
  10. Depending on how you like your meat done, and depending on the thickness of the cut:
  11. If you prefer rare, or the cut is thick (~3”), getting the thick part to 100 degrees is enough. It can really overcook the thinner part of the meat if you wait to get the thick part to get higher than that.
  12. If you prefer your meat more done, or the cut is thinner (~2”), let the thick part of the cut get up to ~110 degrees.
  13. Just before you’re done move it over to the direct heat side with the fatty side down. Render that for just minute or two.
  14. When you take it off the grill, let it sit for ~10 min under some foil. This will fully cook the interior without further drying out the outside of the meat.

Serving

Slice 1/2” or thinner strips, cutting across the grain of the meat (perpendicular to it’s length). People who like meat well done take from the thin end, more rare from the thick end.