Smoked Chili

[Elliot Grossman]

I'm thinking of making chili by using ground beef. Is this a good idea? Or would it turn out better using stew meat? Any suggestions more than welcomed.

 

[Lew Newby]

Ground beef works just fine.

 

[timothy]

Yep, 80/20 as far as not to lean, Or cube up a chuck roast instead of using "stew meat"

Tim

 

[Derek Yoder]

Depends on how much work you want to put into the chili...80/20 ground chuck is fine...to really add some flavor, I smoke a full packer brisket, and then use the cubed point meat as well...talk about good chili. The other thing that I add is bacon...I know it sounds weird, but man does it work! Cut the bacon up in 1 inch squares then cook them (but not until crisp), then I add 1/2 the bacon drippings to the chili as well as the bacon (I never said it was good for you

) then I brown the ground chuck and onion in the remaining bacon drippings. Ok great...now I'm hungry

 

[Dave Penn]

+1 for using brisket.

I did a 16# packer on Christmas day and used the leftovers - which were probably half of the brisket - in a batch of chili. A close second is chuck roast cubed up and browned really well. Don't crowd the skillet when you brown it. You're looking for a nice deep brown seared surface all the way around the cubes. It's a painstaking and somewhat putzy process, but it'll give your chili a rich beef flavor that you just can't get with ground beef. If you're in a hurry, the ground beef will work.

 

[Chris E]

I won a chili contest using 80/20 ground beef that I smoked for 1.5 hours at 220 with cherry. I put the ground beef in an aluminum pan and stirred every 20 or 30 minutes to expose more beef to the smoke.

When serving I stirred in a scoop of burnt ends from a brisket point as well.

Otherwise it was the usual onions, tomatoes, chilis, jalapenos, beans etc.