Corned Beef with Tri Tip

I had convinced myself that tri tip had similar course, stringy grain as brisket and i could do as much or as little fat as I wanted by trimming bulk, unpeeled tri tips that were on sale for $1.99 recently. Sounded like a good alternative cut for corning. Some places sell corned round so tri tip may work as well. I've also dry brined some gamey meat and that was tastey but lean and dry. Maybe a wet brine and wetter cooking method will help lean game.

Beacuse I wanted to pressure steam the corned beef and not boil away some of the saltiness, I used the 5% brine recipes (Ruhlman and I think ATK) and bulk pickling spice. Since the trimmed tri tips were around 2-3 lbs, I used a half recipe (2 quarts of brine vs 1 gallon). I did cure at 1 teaspoon per 5 pounds, including the weight of the liquid. Soak time was 10 days.

Other folks on youtube were doing pressure cooking on corned beef brisket for 90 minutes with a 12 ounce beer. I did that for a starting point. 90 minutes of pressure steaming for a corned tri tip is too long as it fell apart while slicing. That would be a great for making hash, but didnt stick together enough to go onto rolls as a slice.

Don't be afraid to corn the tri tips when they go on sale!

Kevin K.