Coffee Marinated Sirloin Steak

I have a love/hate relationship with sirloin steak.  Sirloin steaks are both leaner and more affordable than ribeye steaks.  Cheaper and healthier suits me just fine. 

On the flip side, sirloin steaks are inherently a tougher cut of beef.  I'll show you why in a minute.

I like to jack up the flavor of these steaks by marinating.  For this steak I went with a classic tri tip marinade and shortened the marinade time from 24 hours down to 4 hours.

Coffee Marinade for Steaks
1 cup black coffee
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce roughly chopped
2 Tablespoons black pepper

The sirloin really soaked up the flavors and colors of the marinade.  This is one of my top three steak marinades ever! 

Grilling was pretty simple over High heat. 
Grill for three minutes.
Rotate 45 degrees for grill marks and grill another three minutes.
Flip and grill for two minutes.

The coffee, smokey chipotle and sugar all combined to make a rich, earthy, almost chocolate flavor.  Really nice stuff!

I was able to slice this pretty thin for presentation but it was still a tough piece of steak.

The culprit here is the grain structure of a typical sirloin steak.  For a steak to be properly tender you need to slice it AGAINST the grain of the meat.  You can see in the picture above that the only option you have with sirloin is to slice it WITH the grain. 

The notable exception to this rule is the magnificent bottom section of the sirloin section known as a tri tip roast.  This noble beast combines the leanness and affordability of the sirloin with a beautiful grain structure that let's you have incredibly tender steak.  Good luck finding a tri tip roast anywhere outside of California though!

Thanks for reading along!  Have a blessed day!