A Three Meat Beef Feast (Top Sirloin Butt)

Prep work

Meat Acquisition and Butchering

You’ll want to ask the butcher for a whole Top Sirloin Butt. Have them trim off any hunks of fat thicker than about a quarter inch on the outside, but otherwise leave as much fat on as possible.

The price is typically $11.50/lb if you take it as-is, or $12.50/lb if they do the trimming. At Thoma’s, enough fat comes off that the final cost per pound ends up about the same either way, so it’s worth letting them do the work. Your local butcher may offer a better deal if you skip the trimming.

I asked them to show me how to separate the three pieces (Cap/Picanha, Center, and Mouse), but I can tell you they pull apart pretty easily and it will be obvious if you try it yourself.

Once you get them separated at home, remember to trim down any fat hunks thicker than a quarter inch. Do not take more fat off than what is required, though. Be gentle. The fat on the sirloin is very edible and delicious.

Commentary on cost

$175 is actually amazing for this.

• The picanha feeds 4-5 normal people (or 3 of me). It would cost at least $80-100 to buy enough high quality steaks for that many people.
• Each half of the center is big enough for 5-6 normal people, and you have two of them. So that's a main course for a 12 person party for $75-$95, but leaps better than a standard rump or chuck roast.
• The mouse cubes are effectively free in this context.

Prepping Picanha (Top Sirloin Butt Cap)

Keep this as one big whole piece, cover both sides maldon salt or kosher salt, and dry brine overnight for 2-3 nights (but no longer).

Dry brine means that you take the salt-covered meat and place it on a wire rack uncovered in the fridge.

Prepping the Sirloin Center

Cut with the grain down the center to make two roasts. You will know if you cut it the right way, because the inside will look like a leaf.

Rather than just coat this one in salt, we want to pack in additional flavor. Mix up a quick rub using the following ingredients (this is the correct amount to make)

• 3 tablespoons maldon/kosher salt
• 1½ tablespoons black pepper
• 2 heaping teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 heaping teaspoon onion powder
• 1 heaping teaspoon smoked paprika
• ½ teaspoon mustard powder

Do not use fresh garlic, fresh onion, etc. Only use powdered. You can get botulism in the vacuum sealed bags from fresh herbs and spices, but not from the powdered stuff.

Cover all sides and edges of the meat in this rub. (Like with a normal salt dry brine, I usually wait 10 minutes before flipping over to coat the other side.)

Like you did with the Picanha, place this on a wire rack in the fridge, but only for 2-3 hours. Do not leave it over night or it will draw out too much moisture from the meat.

After 2-3 hours in the fridge, it needs to come back out to be vacuum sealed. After vacuum sealing, place in your deep freezer. We will be cooking later with the sous vide method. Because of that, we can place it frozen straight into a sous vide, eliminating the thawing process.

Understand that the reason that we did not vacuum seal the Picanha, but instead put it in a dry brine in the fridge for 3 days, is that we are cooking it with an oven method. We cannot place a frozen Picanha into the oven. So, from a logical standpoint of how to get the most out of this meat, as conveniently as possible, we eat the Picanha first and save the two center roasts for when we need to throw together a big meal.

Trimming the Mouse

For now, clean up the silver skin (it looks like thick/rainbow bands, almost like plastic). It is completely inedible; silver skin cannot be cooked down. You'll want a good boning knife for this. (This is also the knife you need to trim up tenderloins into filets.)

The first photo is after I trimmed and removed the silver skin. I ended up with a couple separate pieces of meat.

Next, you'll want to cube it up into pieces roughly the same size. Set them all separately from one another on a baking sheet and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours (I left mine in over night). Once they are entirely frozen, snap them off the baking sheet and put them into a ziplock bag. (Had you tossed em all into the ziplock bag originally, they would have froze together into a single block of meat. Competely useless.)

Now, when you are making soup, you can throw as many individually frozen meat cubes into the broth to cook. No need to thaw first.

Cooking Methods

As I explained in the first post, you will be using two methods already described in other recipes to complete these cooks.

Cooking Picanha (Cap)

• Place in roaster with rack, no cover, in oven at 275F until internal reaches 118-119F.
• Remove from oven, leaving in roaster, uncovered, until internal drops to around 100F.
• (You can use this gap to sync up separate dishes so that everything comes out together.)
• Place in oven on highest setting (for me, convection roast 500F) for 90 seconds. It is too small to go any longer than that
• Alternatively, cook for roughly the same amount of time over a hot wood fire grill
• Slice against the grain. Enjoy immediately.

This is nearly identical to the Perfect Prime Rib (Reverse Seared) method, with slightly different oven temperature and sear times.

You could also do this exact same thing on a smoker if you can reliably keep the temperature in the 275F range.

5 May 2026

Cooking Sirloin Center

• Whether frozen or thawed, this will cook for 24 hrs in a sous vide bath at 131F.
• Place in cold water for 30-45 minutes before placing in the fridge.

For additional information on sous vide, please read Sous Vide Guidelines

If Eating Today

• If you are making it today, it needs another 2 hrs in the fridge to drop to a low enough temperature to sear it without overcooking it.
• Remove it from the fridge, and the vacuum sealed bag, patting completely dry. Test the center to make sure it dropped to 100F - 110F. Place back in the fridge if still too hot.
• Cook over a blazing hot wood fire grill until all sides look seared. If meat was on the colder side (too long in fridge), cook with lid closed. If meat was on the warmer side, cook with lid open.

If Eating Later

• Keep in fridge for a maximum of 8 days. If it is like other cuts of sous vide meat, it will be even more tender in 5 days than if you make it immediately.
• Remove from fridge and retherm. Retherm means to gently bring it up to temperature without recooking it.
• Retherm in sous vide bath again for 4 hrs at 120F.
• Or, after pulling from fridge, remove from vacuum bag, and retherm in the oven at 250F, using a temperature probe to pull it when it reaches 115-120F.
• Or, instead of the oven, retherm at 250F in a smoker, pulling at 115-120F internal.
• Make sure to pat completely dry and let sit out for 20 minutes before searing.
• Cook over a blazing hot wood fire grill until all sides look seared. Due to the size of this roast, sear with the lid closed, turning every 90 seconds or so.

7 May 2026

Cooking the Mouse

A few ideas on how to use this meat (click links for recipes)

• Steak + Egg Hash
• Garlic Butter Steak Bites
• Beef Stir Fry
• Kabobs
• Soups

6 Jun 2026

sirloin center cook off using the recipe above

tim rethermed by smoked his til 115 internal ( what temperature did you smoke at?) then pulled it out, cranked the heat, and seared on high heat

i rethermed for 4 hrs at 120F sous vide then 3-5 minutes each side on a wood fire. next time I'll retherm at 115. mine overcooked just a hair