How to Smoke a Inside Beef Shirt
To make a large smoked beef top round in the 5-7 lb range like the one I recommend below, you'll probably have to speak to the butcher and get them to cut one for you. Most of the pieces in the meat department of your local grocer will be much smaller than this.
Season it up withmy Texas style rub (Purchase formula here | Purchase bottled rub) and smoke it until it reaches a perfect medium rare for delicious and smoky goodness that won't quit!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Dry brine: 8-10 hours
- Cook Time: 4-5 hours
- Smoker Temp: 225-250°F
- Meat Finish Temp: 130°F
- Recommended Wood: Oak
- Beef top round, 5-7 lb
- Kosher salt, coarse grained
- Jeff's Texas style rub (Purchase formula here | Purchase bottled rub)
6.5 lb top round ready to be brined/seasoned.
To dry brine is to add salt to the outside of a piece of meat. The salt draws out some of the natural meat juices which then mix with the salt and are drawn back into the meat.
There's a lot of science involved but the main thing is that it works very well on large chunks of beef like this top round.
My process is to coat the meat with my Texas style rub (Purchase formula here | Purchase bottled rub) first.
Then, because my Texas style rub has the right amount of salt to season but not enough to actually dry brine the beef perfectly, we add a little more coarse grained kosher salt all over.
Place the top round into a large lidded container or a jumbo zip top bag and put it in the fridge during the brining process.
Let the meat dry brine in the fridge overnight for best results. Remove the meat from the fridge and it is ready for the smoker.
Because the meat is so big, the extra salt does not need to be rinsed off.
Set up your smoker for cooking at 225-250°F using indirect heat.
If your smoker uses a water pan, fill it up with hot water or other liquid of your choice.
Once the smoker is ready, place the meat directly on the smoker grate or you can use a Weber grill pan or Bradley rack to hold it in the smoker and to easily move it back to the kitchen when it's finished cooking.
Keep the smoke going for at least 2 hours if you are using a smoker that uses charcoal, gas or electric for fuel.
I recommend oak for this smoked top round but any smoking wood will work fine.
The cooking process should take about 4-5 hours to reach medium rare (130°F) but may vary depending on your smoker, how often you open the smoker, the weather, meat thickness and even how cold the meat is when you place it into the smoker.
Here is the meat 4 hours in on my Meadow Creek TS120P barbecue smoker:
Be sure to use a digital probe meat thermometer that stays in the meat the entire time it is cooking. I use the "Smoke" by Thermoworks these days for accurate temperatures.
This allows you to keep the lid closed and still know when the meat needs to be removed from the smoker.
If you want to use an instant read such as the Thermapen or the Thermopop, that will work well also.
When the meat reaches 130°F it has reached medium rare and is the best temperature in my opinion for eating this cut of beef.
Bring the top round into the kitchen and set it on a cutting board, tent some foil over it for about 10-15 minutes to allow the juices to redistribute before slicing.
Slice the meat across the grain and serve immediately.
Serve like steaks with mashed potatoes, corn and green beans or you can slice it into thin strips for fajitas, tacos or even toppings for a salad.
✅ My rubs and sauce will be the best thing you've ever tasted and it's a great way to support what we do!
You can also order the formulas for my rubs and sauce and make these yourself at home. Grab those HERE and download immediately.
Smoking Meat: The Essential Guide to Real Barbecue – The book is full of recipes and contains tons of helpful information as well. Some have even said that "no smoker should be without this book"!
With more than 1000 reviews on Amazon.com and a rating of4.7 out of 5 stars, it comes highly recommended and is aBestseller in Barbecuing & Grilling books on Amazon.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | German Edition
Smoke, Wood, Fire: The Advanced Guide to Smoking Meat – Unlike the first book, this book does not focus on recipes but rather uses every square inch of every page teaching you how to smoke meat. What my first book touched on, this second book takes it into much greater detail with lots of pictures.
It also includes a complete, step-by-step tutorial for making your own smoked "streaky" bacon using a 100 year old brine recipe.
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Printable Recipe
Smoked Beef Top Round
Ingredients
- Beef top round ((, 5-7 lb))
- Kosher salt ((, coarse grained))
- Jeff's Texas style rub recipe
Instructions
- Add more coarse kosher salt to the meat to help with the dry brining process. See picture in web version of recipe to estimate proper coverage.
- Place top round into lidded container and place into fridge overnight.
- When the brining process is complete, remove the top round from the fridge and set aside.
- Set up smoker for cooking at about 225-250°F with indirect heat.
- Place the meat on the smoker grate and let it cook for 4-5 hours or until it reaches medium rare (130°F)
- Use oak smoke for best results but any smoking wood will work fine.
- Add smoke for at least 2 hours.
- When the meat is finished cooking, let it rest for about 10 minutes then slice into steaks or strips.
12 Comments
Source: https://www.smoking-meat.com/may-19-2016-smoked-beef-top-round
Great recipe… 5lbs on my rectec bullseye cooked quick at 225… might try low. Awesome for a mushroom swiss steak sandwich on pretzel bun!!! So juicy and delicious! I foiled and put in a small cooler 2 hrs until dinner and all of the juicy stayed in. Also a grill mat really helps keep it from drying out. THANKS
Made this today after dry brining overnight. Cooked it at 240 degrees in my Rec Tec until an internal temp of 136, roughly 4 hours. I pulled it off then, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil, then wrapped that in a towel, then put it into a cooler for 2 hours to rest. When I took it out I checked the temp and it was still 134 degrees. My family loved it! I will definitely make this recipe again! Thanks, Jeff!
Made this last night on my Traeger Pellet Smoker. Brined my meat over night with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Didn't add anything else, just popped it in the smoker at 180 for an hour (I am trying to figure out how to get more smoke flavor in my meats, and someone suggested this) then bumped it up to 225 for 2 hours. I only had a 3 pound roast. I took mine to 140, and it was perfect! Thanks for all the tips!
Look into smoke tubes they are a game changer
you only need to drop the Traeger down to 215 to get strong smoke… this wont affect your cook times too much and will prevent the need to bump up the temp to finish the cook!!!
Dumb question: When the recipe says to add smoke for 2 hours, that means 2 or 4-5 hours of the total medium rare cooking time, NOT an additional 2 hours, right?
You are correct. This time is given for those who do not have wood or pellet smokers. It just means they can add wood chips/chunks for only 2 hours if they like. Longer is fine and more closely simulates a real wood smoker providing there is plenty of airflow into and out of the smoker.
Hey Jeff what would cooking time be if the roast size was 25 to 30 lbs I'm looking to feed up to 50 people . Would you cut the roast into smaller pieces for lower cooking time
I have not cooked a top round of that size as most of them are cut into much smaller roasts of 4 to 7 lbs each. If I had one that size, I would definitely cut it up into at least 4 or 5 roasts so they would cook faster, be easier to slice, each piece would have more seasoning, etc.
That much cold meat in the smoker is going to increase the cook time a little but probably not more than an hour or so at the most. Remember that time is just an estimate, the roasts are done when they reach your desired done temperature in the thickest part of the meat. I suggest medium rare or about 130 to 135°F maximum.
Cook time is based on minimum thickness. My roast was 6.5 lbs and the minimum thickness was the distance from top to bottom which was an average of about 4 inches. I would expect any top round roast of this equivalent size to take about 4 to 5 hours to reach medium rare if you maintain 225-250°F in your smoker.
Amazing!!!! Even though I cooked it a tad to long it still was great!
Smoked Beef Top Round -Outstanding.
I got the butcher at the Farm Fresh to cut a 5 lb roast size hunk of the top round. I followed the instructions and the meat was absolutely perfect. 137 degrees after 4 1/2 hours gave us a juicy medium rare beef. Sliced thin, we'll have great sandwiches for a couple days. Thanks!