This recipe and video covers a type of cooking known as Sous Vide. It's French and means cooking under vacuum in a Water bath. This technique has become a common use in many high end restaurants. The benefits to using this technique are consistency, flavor, tenderness without over cooking.

The meat is placed in a vacuum bag with seasoning etc. then vacuumed and sealed. The meat is then placed in a hot water bath 130- 135 degrees F or so and cooked for a long duration. 2 to 72 hours depending on the cut of meat. In this case 6.5 hours. Since there is no air present during the cooking process, the meat becomes more flavorful.  So lets get to cooking!

I started by pre heating my Sous Vide water bath to 134 Degrees F.

I then trimmed two 2 3/4 lbs. Tri Tip roasts.  Seasoned the Tri Tip on both top, bottom and sides with coarse ground black pepper and Sea Salt.

Next I fired up the Amaze-N-Tube-Smoker filled half way up with Bear Mountain Cascade Alder pellets. Once the cold smoke is rolling  place the meat in the smoker (no heat) just cold smoke. Allow the meat to bask in the Alder smoke for 1.5 hours. Ambient temperature outside was 46 degrees. Keep in mind if you do this in hotter temperatures you may want to reduce the smoke time to avoid food safety issues.

Once the meat has cold smoked for the 1.5 hours,  sprinkled on some more Sea Salt, coarse ground black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder to taste. Next then placed them into vacuum sealer bags. Apply vacuum removing all air and then sealed the bags.

In this case I used the Vacmaster Pro 305 which is an excellent commercial grade vacuum Sealer. Once sealed I placed the bags into the 134 degree F water bath to cook for 6.5 hours.

Once the Tri Tip have been in the water bath for the 6.5 hours, remove them from the water. Cut open the bags and drain the meat juices into a cup or bowl. The juices retained will be used as Au-Jus for dipping.  Pat dry the meat with a paper towel. Sprinkle on a little more sea salt and coarse ground black pepper.

Next its time to sear the meat. This can be done in a heated a skillet on high or in this case on a grill. I'm using the Yoder YS640 heated to 500 degrees F with Grillgrates, Seared for one  1 1/2 minutes per side. Once the steaks are seared quickly flip on all sides. As you flip the steaks this is a great time to mop on some garlic butter. I melted 1.2 stick salted butter and added a clove of minced garlic. Once done let stand 10 minutes, slice and serve. Don't forget to pour the Au-Jus into a small bowl for dipping. 

That's it! You should have two super moist and tender Tri Tip evenly cooked from edge to center. Full of flavor.  Enjoy! 

Beef doneness chart for adjusting temps to your liking. Consult Sous Vide guides for cooking under 130 degrees as your cook times will have to be reduced to avoid food safety issues.

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