I’m inspired as well. There will have to be palm trees in my next food pic.

Thanks! Our kitchen and dining room are so cluttered that I usually go to the little terrace patio we built just outside the kitchen for food photos.

Grilled prime tri tip
grilled onions
grilled sweet potatoes
salad with romaine , hearts of palm, kalamata olives, goat cheese, grilled avocado


so purty

Gorgeous tri tip Corky - I’m tempted to try grilling it.

we were stuffed from our hot dog luncheon ...

watermelon
Susiecakes chocolate cake
Vanilla ice cream
popcorn

Thank you. As long as you have a meat thermometer (preferably a probe) you can do it. Such a flavorful cut of meat...it was delicious.

Did you just grill it or give it some indirect heat as well? It's a pretty thick cut of meat to just put straight over coal I would've thought.

Looks great either way.

Actually it was very flat and kind of puffed up when I cooked it...flatest one i have ever bought. I marinated and then dry rub. Put over direct coals and wood chips to sear and then moved to indirect to finish. It was done in about half the time I expected which is why I never could do without a thermometer. Weber kettle. I use my Weber gas almost every night so it was nice to dust off the old charcoal.

Ahh understand. So you did let it have a bit of time to chill on the indirect side.

Agree on the meat probes. I think I could do a something I want falling apart without a probe because you can just sort of poke it and know it's done, but if you want a nice steak on a big cut like tri-tip you got to have that probe!

Cooking with charcoal is so much more fun than gas.

Well cooking with charcoal is definitely a high wire act compared to gas. I had just added some charcoal to the grill as mine was burning way down and 5 minutes later it was done so I did that for nothing...hard to predict & control the temp but the flavor is the best.
I debated whether to do indirect first or last...I think the conventional wisdom is to do indirect first and sear later but I wanted to use my coals while they were hot and worried that they wouldn't be going enough for a sear at the end.
I can do a steak or piece of chicken or fish w/o a probe but little else. Whole chicken or roasts can be unpredictable.
Are you using briquettes or hardwood chunks?

IME, searing at the end 30 seconds a side or so works much better than at the start if you want to avoid a grey band on the meat. That picanha I did a few ago and posted a pic of was done with a quick sear at the end.

Do you use a pit probe as well? My Thermopro has two probes so you can measure pit temp and internal meat temp. That can really help you make adjustments to the air vents to get the temp where you want it. On long slow cooks knowing the pit temp is as important as knowing the meat temp. I wouldn't worry about overfilling with charcoal. If you're worried about not having a sear ready then just have some charcoal heating up in a starter chimney that you can pour in for your sear. Whatever you don't, use charcoal wise, you can use next time.

The way I do a reverse sear is pull it off the BBQ, put some oil and pepper on the steak while the charcoal gets lots of air and starts to get really hot again, then quick sear 60/90 seconds a side and that's it. It would be more difficult to do it that way with a whole tri-tip without adding some hot charcoal to the kettle, because of the area size of the TT.

I use briquettes but they're more like some sort of extruded charcoal (pic here: https://mysliceoflife.com.au/wp-cont...brickettes.jpg). I only use wood for smoke.

I very rarely grill big cuts of food anymore so I am going to pass on the pit temp. I have in the past started a second chimney of coals but it all gets to be suck a mess with trying to remove the hot grill and someplace to put the chimney etc. I am not dealing with a lot of room. Fortunately my grill gate has the hinges so I can add charcoal without lifting the whole thing...I usually pour in some hardwood because it gets hotter faster. My sear was a lot longer than yours...maybe about 3-4 minutes per side and then it only needed 5-10 over indirect. I was shocked...I used another thermometer for insurance and they were both correct. I cooked the onions, sweet potatoes and avocados first so that is when my fire was at it's best...if it was just the beef, I could have had a bit more control.
What's the deal with those charcoal extrusions? I have never seen those anywhere. Is there an advantage?

Dunno. That's just how they come. They do generate more heat from smaller amount, that could be a quality issue though more than a shape issue.

I would think the shape helps them burn hotter; it gives them more surface area, and maybe somehow the hole draws air through them, too, during burning.

I find that since Kingsford changed their formula a couple years ago, their briquettes burn too hot and too fast...I used to get a much longer heat from them without adding coals...now they burn down way too quickly. I use hardwood chunks when I want super high heat but I would prefer the briquettes to burn slower so maybe those extrusion things aren't for me.

You could be right. I know most top restaurants that use charcoal use that type of charcoal, actually I think most of them use that particular brand "Firebrand".

It's more expensive/kg but I use far less than when I buy regular briquettes. And I know I can get it a good 60c degrees hotter than I can with regular briquettes which makes a difference when trying to cook pizzas.