Smoked Tri-Tip Recipe

5 from 3 votes

Learn how to smoke tri-tip following my easy Smoked Tri-Tip recipe! Complete with a gorgeous sear, herbs, and garlic. Done smoking in 1 hour.

Prep Time25

Cook Time1

Total Time1 25

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: smoked tri tip, smoked tri tip recipe, smoking tri tip, tri tip traeger

Servings:

Calories: 970kcal

See our Beef Temperature Chart for helpful tips on cooking any cut of beef!

Preheat the smoker to 300 degrees. Trim off any excess fat from the steak. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic (in that specific order) and cover the entire steak, front and back. Be generous, if you need more seasoning to totally cover it, use more.
5 Pound Tri-Tip Steak, 2 Tablespoons Coarse Salt, 2 Tablespoons Coarse Black Pepper, 2 Tablespoons Granulated Garlic
Place the meat on your smoker. Add the garlic cloves, thyme, and butter to the cast iron skillet, and place it inside the smoker, leaving a bit of room between it and the steak.
1 Stick Unsalted Butter, 8 Cloves Garlic, ¼ Cup Fresh Thyme
Smoke for about 1 hour or until the steak reaches an internal temperature of 135 degrees. Immediately remove the pan from the smoker and place it on your stovetop. Heat to medium/high. Once your pan is hot (no more than 5 minutes), sear the steak for about 2 minutes on each side.
Let the steak cool for about 10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!

Leaving the tri-tip to sit after it’s finished cooking gives it a chance to soak up some of the juices that were released in the cooking process.
I used hickory pellets for this smoke, but you really can’t go wrong with any wood choice.
This steak will cook/look differently than your average steak. This means, you won’t see that deep, dark red as a meaty center when it’s rare.
It’s important you go off of temperature and not look when cooking meat, especially this cut. For a medium/rare cook, it will be an internal temperature of 140 degrees. Go up about 5 degrees or so for each level you want it cooked more. For example, medium would be 145 degrees internal temp.
When heating up your cast iron skillet, it shouldn’t take long since it was already in the smoker heating up for quite a while. Be careful when heating it further on the stove, as you don’t want to burn any of the ingredients.