Is tri-tip the best cut of meat, or what?! It lends itself great to a med-rare Santa Maria grill, or... if you find the right piece, it's great to smoke. I found the latter.
This piece had great marbling - looked like it could be Prime masquerading as Choice, or almost a brisket point. Works for me at 4 or 5 bucks a pound.
I learned how to better get my temps up and for a long time on the kettle - just pile a ton of lump for indirect and let it go for 5 hours - not much fiddling. Now I just need to figure out how to get it to stop with the crazy ton of smoke - maybe it's the particular bag of lump that I got. Anyway, this turned out amazing. It was just a simple rub of S&P, garlic powder, cumin, and quite a bit of coriander.
![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vO9Egvnq-k4/Ugv1JE7PBZI/AAAAAAAAAWI/hDSz6KDDBYo/s1600/tri-tip-1-on.jpg)
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xHGAjoAIBAs/Ugv1KrQxRjI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/V1rdnhDlQdM/s1600/tri-tip-2-done.jpg)
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4o0eVn1gXQs/Ugv1L0Pz8xI/AAAAAAAAAWY/llW9yIDFb88/s1600/tri-tip-3-sliced.jpg)
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SqaxYwm-N1s/Ugv1NJqlV6I/AAAAAAAAAWg/l6jnOvjgWv4/s1600/tri-tip-4-plated.jpg)
-Jason