My split drum grill has eyes for tri-tip

[Smokey Lew]

Put a couple of 3" pit thermometers in my split drum grill and thought it looked so hungry I'd feed it a tri-tip. Temps held at about 350 degrees with the lid closed. Used some red oak for smoke and seasoned up the tri-tip with a combination of kosher salt, granulated garlic and ground pepper. I also grilled some corn and summer squash.





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[Tri Tip]

That's fantastic Lew! I used 2" but the 3" look way nicer. Now you can realy get a feel for how you grill cooks with different fuel and with and without the bunghole. I keep an over thermometer on the rack to the far right it's my warming zone. At the grill grate it's about 180 with the coall all the way to the left. It's about 40 deg lower than the lit thermometer on the right. Good looken Tri Tip. Ralphs had an 8 hour sale on Thursday where Tri Tip was only $1.99 per lb... Stocked up.

 

[Smokey Lew]

I got the tri-tip from Stater Brothers. There were two to the package and it was on special for $2.49 a pound. Not as good a deal as yours tri-tip but I couldn't pass it up.

I checked the rack temp with my Redi Check thermometer and after the lid was close for awhile and things warmed up, there was only about 10 or 15 degrees difference between the rack temp and the pit thermometer's readings.

I modified my charcoal basket some so the size is equal to 1/3 the width of the grill and same depth as the charcoal screen is sits on. I basically have three different zones for direct cooking - far left, center and far right. It seems to work pretty good this way. I've been cooking with it in the center position so I end up with a non-direct zone to each side. The zone on the left is about 10 degrees cooler than the zone on the far right. I think that's because the wind was blowing pretty hard from that direction.

 

[Vermin999]

Great looking tri tip and plate Lew. I was digging in my freezer the other day and found 4 tri tips in there, only thought I had one so I passed on the Ralphs sale.

 

[Griff]

SL

Those were great pics of some good looking beef.

 

[bbquzz]

The "Happy Face" in the first picture is great, the drum looks like it can almost talk As always your cook looks super. Not that I could cook like that, I did email Chaney to see if there was any chance he would ship a drum to Ohio, (FedEx of course) I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Tri Tip]

I got the tri-tip from Stater Brothers. There were two to the package and it was on special for $2.49 a pound. Not as good a deal as yours tri-tip but I couldn't pass it up.

I checked the rack temp with my Redi Check thermometer and after the lid was close for awhile and things warmed up, there was only about 10 or 15 degrees difference between the rack temp and the pit thermometer's readings.

I modified my charcoal basket some so the size is equal to 1/3 the width of the grill and same depth as the charcoal screen is sits on. I basically have three different zones for direct cooking - far left, center and far right. It seems to work pretty good this way. I've been cooking with it in the center position so I end up with a non-direct zone to each side. The zone on the left is about 10 degrees cooler than the zone on the far right. I think that's because the wind was blowing pretty hard from that direction.

Yeah that's what I do too. I put my coal on the left third portion of the grill and have three zones plus the top rack.