Smoked Beef Tenderloin Recipe | GrillinFools

This smoked beef tenderloin recipe involves trimming out a whole beef tenderloin into its component parts and then dry brining it overnight before smoking it and finishing off with a quick sear. We will also show some tricks to maximize the yield on this very expensive cut. 

Christmas in the Grillin’ Fools Houses is all about the beef. It’s usually a coin flip between prime rib (and another option at Prime Rib, this time with hickory) and beef tenderloin. Don’t be afraid to shake things up and wrap that beef tenderloin in crumbled bacon (not bacon strips, crumbled bacon). One of these years I’m shaking things up and doing beef ribs for everyone. Now, I just have to convince my wife on that one. At that point I’ll be doing either this simple beef ribs recipe or this one where I smoke beef ribs with garlic and onion and foil with some wine. Or should I do beef BACK ribs?

Back to the recipe at hand. This one is so simple and easy, you will kick yourself for not trying it earlier.

Begin with a dry brine

What is Dry Brining?

The simplest form of dry brining is giving the meat, and it can be any meat, a coating of salt and letting it sit in the fridge for 2-12 hours. I like to dry brine with a salty seasoning so more than just the salt penetrates the meat. Indeed, my go-to for this is an SPG seasoning

What is SPG?

SPG is, for me, the holy trinity of seasoning for just about anything barbecue and grilling related. It is Salt, Pepper and Garlic. It goes well on beef, pork, chicken/poultry and even fish and shellfish. 

For this cookout, we used two different SPG seasonings which I will explain after the ingredient list

Smoked Beef Tenderloin Recipe Ingredients

Other Gear Needed

• A thin bladed filet or boning knife
• Bakers twine

Here are our two whole beef tenderloins:

The two tenderloins are placed fat end to skinny and skinny end to fat. The one on the left has the fat end at the bottom and the other had the fat end at the top.

How to Trim Beef Tenderloin

First, follow the fat that connects the extra fat muscles on the fat end, which is called the knob or the head.  With a sharp knife separate the fat muscles (there are two of them).  Also, lop off the tail or the skinny end about the place where we get a uniform width of the main part of the beef tenderloin which is called the chateaubriand. Finally, slide filet knife under the middle of the fat or silver skin and slide the blade along the top of the tenderloin to separate half the fat or silver skin from the meat. Then pull that fat up with your fingers and separate the rest with the knife.

Here are our beef tenderloins trimmed and ready for trussing and dry brining:

These tenderloins were mostly trimmed already in terms of fat and silver skin. In the upper left of the above pic is the fat and silver skin we removed.

Tenderloin Tail Hack

The two pieces of meat in the lower right hand corner of the pic above are the tenderloin tails. These pieces are very hard to cook properly because the tail tapers so much. But if you have two of them, tie them together fat end to skinny to form a hunk of meat that is pretty uniform in thickness. Here is our step-by-step, pic-by-pic, foolproof instructions on how to truss and cook beef tenderloin tails. 

Speaking of trussing, we recommend trussing up the chateaubriand of each of these beef tenderloins to keep them a more uniform shape, as in the twine keeps the chateaubriand from flattening out. Indeed, trussing the smaller pieces together will insulate them and allow them to take on more smoke before they are ready to sear. Thus, tie the two Knob or Head pieces together from each tenderloin.

Then, season with both SPG seasonings:

Why Two Seasonings for our Smoked Beef Tenderloin?

Livia’s is made up of thick granules of salt, pepper and garlic while DB180 is a much more fine powder which will just melt into the meat in minutes. Between the two of them, I get a pretty potent SPG flavor, which is necessary since we slice these meat logs into medallions and only get the outer ring with the smoke, char and seasoning. 

How Make Smoked Beef Tenderloin

Prepare the grill for two-zone grilling with heat on one side and not the other. Next, smoke wood (post oak in this case) went into fire and the beef tenderloins went on the side with no heat. Target temp inside the grill is 250F. The lid was closed and once the beef tenderloins got to 125F internal temp, they were placed over the hot coals and given a quick sear. If you want it more rare, sear at 110F. More done? Sear it off at 130F. Allow to rest under a loose tent of foil for 10-30 minutes. Finally, slice and serve. 

Prepare the Grill for this Beef Tenderloin Recipe

The grill is set up for two-zone or indirect grilling with coals on one side and nothing on the other. The target temp inside the grill is 250F. Then, smoke wood is placed on coals (one chunk will do) and the beef tenderloins go on the side with no heat. 

How Long to Make Smoked Beef Tenderloin?

This varies based on the temp of the grill and size of the beef, but it won’t take very long. With so little marbling, making smoked beef tenderloin will take less than an hour. In fact, be thinking 45 minutes to an hour. 

Once the smoked beef tenderloin reaches 125F, do a quick sear over the hot coals. Furthermore, if you want the beef more rare, sear it at 110F. If you want it more done, then sear it at 130F-135F.

Here we are searing the smoked beef tenderloins:

Rest the Beef

Remove the smoked beef tenderloin from the grill and cover loosely with aluminum foil. Allow the chateaubriands to rest for at least 10 minutes and up to 30 minutes. 

Slice and serve:

We were feeding a large crowd with a wide variety of desired doneness for their steaks on Christmas Eve so we covered a pretty wide spectrum of doneness, including the beef above which was sort of in the middle.

This was on the more done side:

And here we have the rarest pieces from this beef tenderloin recipe which were those knobs or heads from the fat end of the untrimmed  tenderloins:

Also, horseradish sauce is not just for prime rib:

Beef Tenderloin Recipe Recap

Simple, elegant, and easy to make. Don’t stress the noel meal, the roast beast, the yule beef log. This is easy and always a home run. Indeed, the biggest issue with this beef tenderloin recipe is the price of the ingredients, but that’s a whole other sermon that I’m just not going to make here. 

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Recipe Card

Smoked Beef Tenderloin Recipe

This smoked beef tenderloin recipe involves trimming out a whole tenderloin into its component parts and then dry brining overnight before smoking and searing

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr

Course: Beef Tenderloin, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Supper, Entree, Filet Mignon, Main Course, Steak, Steak Roast

Cuisine: Beef, Beef Tenderloin, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Supper, Steak, Steak Roast

Keyword: Barbacue Beef Ribs, Beef Tenderloin, Beef Tenderloin Recipe, Black Garlic, Chateaubriand, Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Supper, Indirect Grilling, Pepper, reverse sear, Salt, Smoked Beef Tenderloin, Smoked Beef Tenderloin Recipe, SPG, SPG Rub, SPG Seasoning, Tenderloin, Tenderloins

• baker’s twine

• Filet or boning knife

• Trim the beef tenderloins by removing the knobs/heads and tails and carving off any fat and silver skin

• Truss the tenderloin tails together, fat end to skinny, skinny end to fat and the knobs/heads. Truss the chateaubriand down the length of the beef to retain its shape

• Season all the way around with both SPG seasoning and place in the beef in the fridge for 8-12 hours.

• Prepare the grill for two zone grilling with hot coals on one side and nothing on the other. Place a chunk of smoke wood on the coals and the beef tenderloin on the side with no heat. Close the lid and smoke until the beef hits 120F-125F.

• Sear the chateaubriands all the way round and and place on a cutting board under a tent of foil to rest for 10-30 minutes.

• Slice into medallions and serve