Tri-tip cook time calculator
Tri-tip is a roast that behaves like a steak: fast, lean, and cooked to doneness rather than to tenderness. Enter the weight and your pit temperature for a cook range, a pull temperature, and the time to put it on.
Local conditions
Off by default. Turning it on asks your browser where you are, or you can type a town instead. Nothing is requested until you do. Altitude then adjusts the cook time using the USDA figure; weather is described but never changes a number.
These are estimates. Cook to internal temperature, not to the clock — two cuts of identical weight can finish hours apart. USDA safe minimum 145F with a 3-minute rest. Cooked to medium-rare by preference; see the doneness chart.
Cooking something else? The full smoking calculator covers every cut, including chicken, turkey, chuck roast, pork loin, beef short ribs and salmon.
How it works
At roughly 30 to 40 minutes per pound at 225F, a typical 2 to 3 lb tri-tip is a 60 to 120 minute cook. This is the shortest cook on the site that still counts as smoking, and it is why tri-tip is a weeknight cut in California and a mystery everywhere else.
There is no stall and no wrap point, because there is not enough mass or connective tissue to produce one. The internal temperature climbs steadily from start to finish, which makes tri-tip unusually predictable.
Doneness governs, not texture. The pull range of 130 to 135F is medium rare, and every ten degrees past that costs you noticeably. This is the opposite of brisket, where 135F is barely a third of the way through the job.
Most people finish a tri-tip with a reverse sear: smoke it to about ten degrees under target, then hit it over direct heat for a crust. Work out your times from the smoke phase and treat the sear as a couple of minutes on top.
What it assumes
- Whole untrimmed tri-tip, going on cold, pit already at temperature.
- Medium rare is the target. USDA FSIS lists whole-muscle beef at 145F with a three-minute rest, which is medium well. Cooking tri-tip to 130 to 135F is a personal risk choice on intact whole muscle, and a very common one.
- You will slice it against the grain, which changes direction partway along the roast. Cut it in two at the bend and slice each half separately, or you will serve half of it chewy no matter how well you cooked it.
- Altitude does not enter into it. Tri-tip has no stall to speak of, and USDA is explicit that oven roasting needs no altitude adjustment because oven temperature does not change with height. Switch on local conditions at 8,000 feet and this page will tell you, correctly, that nothing has been added.
Questions
Roughly 75 to 100 minutes to reach medium rare, plus 10 to 15 minutes of rest and a couple of minutes of searing if you are reverse searing it.