Kevin and Alana came by on Thursday afternoon and we went into town to District Brewing on the corner of Main Street and Myrtle Street – across from the park where the farmers’ market is held. The brewery had a variety of good IPAs on tap, but only one amber or red ale and one porter.

We found a table on the upper level overlooking the park and Skagit River. After a round of ales, we moved to an outside table so Alana’s chihuahua, Chico, could join us. I ordered a wood-fired pizza to go and Donna and I enjoyed it back at home.

Friday was mostly uneventful – Donna went out for a bike ride. I went to Lowes and bought supplies to build a new antenna mast. I received an MFJ-2289 Big Ear dipole antenna from Ham Radio Outlet the day before. This monster looks kind of like an old “rabbit ear” TV antenna on steroids. The collapsible whips are 17 feet long! I built a mast and mounted it on a sturdy tripod about 10 feet above the ground. The idea is to get on the 20-meter band and see if I can make some distant single-side-band contacts over the air. I haven’t been successful yet.

As I was messing with the radio yesterday afternoon, I could see clouds thickening and could feel rain coming. I took everything down and put the radio away. Meanwhile, I had a tri-tip on the Traeger wood-fired smoker-grill.

I bought the tri-tip at Winco Foods on Wednesday. It was untrimmed, so I trimmed the fat cap and seasoned it Thursday night. Tri-tip is an interesting cut of beef and has some folklore behind it. The tri-tip cut is the bottom of the sirloin – the tensor fasciae latae muscle in front of a cow’s hip. It’s a curved cut usually about eight or nine inches long and three inches thick in the center, tapering on the ends.

This portion of meat was once used only for ground beef or maybe stew meat. The story goes like this – in the 1950s a butcher named Bob Schutz at Safeway in Santa Maria, California was overstocked on ground beef. So he took a bottom sirloin cut that would normally be ground and spiced it, then put it on a rotisserie. The results were surprising. Everyone found the meat to be flavorful and hearty. With a few tweaks, he perfected the method of grilling over coals and began marketing the “tri-tip” as he called it, as a barbecue cut.

This barbecue meat became quite popular in Santa Maria, which is located in a valley known for growing wine grapes, midway between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Today, a tri-tip that has been barbecued is known as “Santa Maria Tri-Tip.” It’s mostly a west coast thing, but I’ve heard it has grown in popularity throughout the country. The traditional method uses a simple dry rub of equal parts salt, pepper and garlic powder. I used a commercially prepared rub called “Pappy’s Choice” which has a high salt content. After trimming the tri-tip, I rubbed it, wrapped it in cling-wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

Friday afternoon, I pulled the Traeger out of the trailer and set the temperature at about 220 degrees. I did this by setting the controller to 180 degrees, then adjusting the P-setting to P0. This had the pellets feeding for 15 seconds, then idling for 45 seconds and held it at the temperature I desired.

After two hours in the Traeger, I checked the internal temperature and found it at 130 degrees. I fired up the Weber Q and heated it to 400 degrees. I took the tri-tip out of the Traeger and put it in the Weber for three minutes per side. This seared the meat and toughened the bark resulting from the rub and smoking. This is called a reverse sear technique as most searing methods start with the sear first.

The last trick to serving tri-tip is to cut it correctly. It’s a lot like cutting brisket. You must cut across the grain and pay attention as the grain direction changes. For our dinner, I sliced the tri-tip in 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick slices.

Donna made whole wheat spaghetti with pesto, sun dried tomatoes and asparagus on the side and she also had fresh corn on the cob which she bought at the vegetable stand near here on her bike ride. I pulled the tri-tip off the Weber at about 5:20 pm, just as it started raining. Perfect timing. I let it rest on a cutting board for 15 minutes before slicing. You need a cutting board with channel cut in the outer perimeter – this is one juicy hunk of beef.

That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about tri-tip. The one I smoked was rather large – about three pounds before smoking. So, we have leftovers and that’s great. I had some with eggs over-easy for a poor man’s steak and eggs breakfast this morning. Donna sliced the remainder into thin slices that’ll be just right for tri-tip sandwiches or topping for a salad.

The rain fell off and on overnight and it’s raining lightly this morning. It should clear up by early afternoon. The thermometer reached 73 yesterday and should be about the same today. Tomorrow and Monday are predicted to be sunny and warmer. I’ll start organizing the trailer today. Tomorrow we plan to visit with Kevin and Alana and our granddaughter, Gabi, and Kevin’s boys, Nick and Kyle. On Monday, we’ll pull out of here and head over the North Cascades to Winthrop.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and  I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!