smoked sirloin

i've been wanting to try this for some time now, pretty much ever since i got into smoking.  texas land and cattle is a steakhouse, which may just be a texas establishment, that features smoked sirloin as their signature dish.  it's unique, tender and flavorful, and seemed like something that could be replicated at home, so when i had it at the restaurant, i instantly wanted to try making it myself.

i wasn't able to find a whole sirloin roast in the grocery store when i went looking, so i went to pete's fine meats, which is a meat market near my office.  i've been there for sandwiches and have bought exotic meats there before, but hadn't ever bought any beef from them.  it's a little chaotic going there.  they don't have a prices displayed with the meat or a price list that was easily visible.  it certainly seems like the kind of place where you're supposed to know what you're doing when you go in there.  i had hoped i could engage somebody in a discussion about what i was intending to do and what i was looking for, but it didn't quite work out that way.  the guy asked me what i wanted, i said sirloin, he said how much, i said four pounds, he took a big ol' hunk of sirloin to the table behind the counter, cut off about four pounds, trimmed it up, showed it to me, i didn't know what to say other than "looks good to me", and off i went with my sirloin, not really knowing if it was exactly the right cut and trim for smoking.  the websites i had been looking at talked about a fat cap, and this piece i had was pretty well trimmed.  all i could do at this point, was give it a shot and hope it worked out (and i REALLY hoped it worked out, cause as it turns out, sirloin from pete's fine meats ain't too cheap).

i consulted several different websites for tips about how to smoke a sirloin.  i'm not going to bother linking any of them, because they mostly say the same thing and i didn't really use a single one as a reference.  the big take aways were, keep the heat around 240-250, flip it after an hour and again every half hour, and cook until the internal temperature is 135 for medium rare (about 30 min per pound).  the texas land and cattle version has a black pepper crust, so i brushed the sirloin with a little olive oil, then covered it with a liberal amount of about a 50/50 mix of coarse ground pepper and salt, probably about a 1/4 cup each.

amanda's parents have an awesome primo grill, which allows you to have very tight control over the temperature.  it has two compartments for the charcoal (they use lump charcoal, not briquettes), so you can have the heat off to one side and the meat on the other.  we soaked about half a bag (not sure the size) of hickory chips and when the primo was up to temp, put about half of our chips on the coals and put the sirloin on the rack.  we also had some cheddar cheese, wrapped in cheese cloth and placed in a bread pan, that we added as well.  amanda's mom has been smoking cheese for a while with great results, so we figured why not toss some in while we've got the smoke going.

amanda's parents also have an electronic meat thermometer with the little remote display, so we stuck the probe in the side of the meat at the start to be able to monitor the internal temperature as it cooked.  i flipped it after an hour (adding the rest of the hickory chips), but opted not to flip it again, since every time you open the smoker, it takes some time to regain the temperature (although not as long as with my smoker, since the primo is ceramic, holding the heat a lot better, and has a much tighter sealed chamber).  it took just about exactly two hours to get the thermometer to read 135, at which time we took it out, wrapped it in foil, and let it rest for about 20 minutes, mostly because we were trying to deep fry a pork roast at the same time and the timing wasn't working out very well.  i'd do a whole other entry about the deep fried pork roast, but it wasn't as spectacular as i'd hoped.  i'll wait until we have better results, maybe with a deep fried ham.

so the moment of truth had arrived.  we unwrapped the sirloin and sliced it up for serving (to go with our steamed asparagus and some awesome roasted potato mash that amanda made).  it was a perfect medium rare, maybe even closer to rare.  i don't know that it had a very discernible smoke ring, but it had an amazing smoke flavor and the black pepper crust was really nice.  it was super tender and just absolutely delicious.  we had bought some boar's head horseradish sauce, which was a nice compliment to dip the sirloin into.  really, this was probably the best meal i had ever taken part in preparing, and it instantly vaulted to the top of my go-to list for future "special occasion" meals.  i'm thinking next time i might try to make some sort of gorgonzola cream sauce, just to add a different twist from the horseradish sauce.

so the "recipe" as i made it:

4 lbs sirloin roast
~2 tbsp olive oil for brushing
1/4 cup coarse ground pepper
1/4 cup salt
1/2 bag of hickory chips

brush sirloin with olive oil.  cover liberally with salt and coarse ground pepper.  bring smoker to 250 degrees, add half of hickory chips and place sirloin on the rack.  flip after one hour and add remaining chips.  cook until internal temperature reads 135 degrees. wrap in foil and let rest for about 20 minutes.  slice and serve with prepared horseradish sauce.