This may sound strange but...


 
B

Brandon A

TVWBB All-Star
I am new to smoking and have yet to buy the WSM, working a little overtime so it shouldent be long. A friend and work and i were talking and were wondering what would be the best way to smoke some ground beef? I know that sounds strange, but my wife wants me to make chilli on sunday and I planned on smoking a butt. I thought if you could get some smoke into the ground beef it would make some killer chilli. Any ideas?
 
Brandon, if it were me I'd kill two birds with one stone. Make brisket. Use the flat for slicing. Use the point chopped up for chili
 
I was thinking along the same lines as Russell, but since using brisket in my chili ground beef hasn't been in my chili since. Once you have chili with brisket you won't go back to ground beef.
 
There's a mexican restaurant in Hayward, California, called La Imperial that served the best chili colorado (red chili). It was made with some sort of beef that had a stringy texure. Sounds to me like brisket.
 
If you like the Chile Colorado at La Imperial, you gotta try it at Mexico Lindo in Pleasanton. It's awesome.

Brandon, I'm with Paul on this; do a brisket and use the point for your Chili -- you'll never use ground meat again.
 
Also consider using tri tip, chuck roast, skirt steak, flank steak, etc. or as a last resort ground beef. You can also ask for rough grind but I prefer to cut tri tip into 1/4 to 3/8 size cubes.

I don't think it's worth smoking the meat for chili but that's just my opinion. The flavors of the chili and spices will likely overtake the smokey flavor.

John
 
I just did a brisket at a friends house last weekend, was kind of a disaster. He has an offset Char-broil and all we did was feed it coal and play with the vents all day, not fun. Im a little leary to do one on the vertical Char-broil water smoker that i have currently, but the chuck roast sounds like it might be the way I go.... As far as the chili flavors overpowering the smokeiness, i dunno, thats what i wanted to find out. As for tri-tips? um, whats that?
icon_confused.gif
 
When my son was in Cal he asked the butcher for Brisket and the butcher offered Tri-Tip instead. They use brisket for ground meat.
When my grandson was stationed near Sacramento the same thing happened.
Our Brookshire butcher here said he'd save me a tri-tip whenever I wanted it. It's an excellent cut of meat.
 
When you smoke your ground beef for chili, save some to make a few sandwiches. When you mix the smoked ground beef with one of your favorite sauces, it make a nice sloppy joe like BBQ sandwich.
 
Originally posted by J Reyes:
I don't think it's worth smoking the meat for chili but that's just my opinion. The flavors of the chili and spices will likely overtake the smokey flavor.
Click to expand...
I have to disagree here. Many of us that cook packer briskets like to separate the point from the flat when the flat is done. The point goes back on the smoker for another 4+ hours. The point is VERY fatty with lots of connective tissue and stands up well to the extended cook time. It also soaks up lots and lots of smoke.

Cook it just past when you think it is done. It'll dry out a bit, but mixed in with the chili it'll soften up and share its' wealth of smokey flavor. Now depending on how you cook your chili the smoke might be masked by other spices, but it will still add a flavor layer.

If you haven't yet tried it then you really must! I don't think you'll be disappointed.
 
Hey Brandon,

I am a newbie myself and try just about everything once to see how it turns out. I smoke ground beef all the time...it is a family favorite. I smoke meatballs and freeze them for spaghetti sauce. Once, I tried to do a meat loaf, but, I could not get the loaf to hold its shape. Rather than toss out the ground beef, I made a ground beef chilli which was awesome. The kids love the hamburgers I do on the smoker as well. As mentioned by Russell Y, a little smoke goes a long way. I have used red oak & sugar maple with great success.

I don't see a lot of ground beef recipes on this site, but, whatever ground beef I have cooked up has turned out excellent.
 
There's a mexican restaurant in Hayward, California, called La Imperial that served the best chili colorado (red chili). It was made with some sort of beef that had a stringy texure. Sounds to me like brisket.
Click to expand...
Could be carne seca. I was able to get that in Tucson all the time - delicioso
icon_biggrin.gif
. For the chili, brisket or chuck works great, haven't tried the meat loaf approach, but it should work fine.
 
Brandon, just to put a different spin on things:

Chopped butt also makes good chili. I smoked one for a friend specifically for chili and I left it "naked" so that there wouldn't be any salt or flavors that might throw off his recipe.

Brad
 
I use point for chili all the time. It's almost the only thing I do with it. Here is one recipe using smoked point; this one I originally developed with unsmoked chuck, but it includes notes on adapting it to using smoked point.
 
At La Imperial Restaurant, the following were offered:

Clili Verde: made with pork.

Chili Colorado: made with stringy beef.
 
Any time I have leftovers from a butts over brisket cook, I take 1 pound of pork, and 1 pound of brisket and vacuum seal it and write "Chili pack" on it. Makes wonderful chili!
 
I stopped using ground beef in chili years ago. Just because I like cubed beef better. I like to use a comibnation of meat usually beef, pork, and lamb when I make chili. Smoking the meat definietly raises the bar. Last time I smoked a combination of cubed pork, beef, and lamb, about 1 lb of each along with a mixture of habanero, jalapeno, and poblano peppers. Absolutely phemonenal. If using ground meats smoke time would be much less, but I would definitely recommend throwing some peppers on there along side to add to the chili as well.
 
First off thanks for all the great replys guys! Last weekend I was a little short on change, so I only did a pork butt. The rest of my chili ingredients usually cost around 20 dollars so I skipped the chili. It will be a busy weekend and I will only have sunday to smoke and make chili, and I think the ground beef will be the quickest way to go. Any tips as to "how" just set a 2 lb block of ground beef on the grate? Also wondering how long it needs to cook?
 
Seems like a baking sheet or pan is almost a necessity if you don't want to lose any meat. I smoked some stew meat last weekend and used a veggie basket; worked great but even smaller holes will let some ground beef bits escape.

Brad
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top