Smoked Chili

Most folks that cook enough briskets for practice,toss the chunks into chili,hash,enchiladas,burritos,etc.

Fine dinin'.

Some folks have cooked chili in their smoker,but good chili cooks will usually tell you that the things you don't do to a good chile usually makes the difference.

Why don't you do a small test run using the smoked bean method and see how it turns out. I'd lean towards the shorter smoke times. Can always increase it. Like Tom says, the judges will be looking for a certain taste so the test will let you know how you'd like to proceed.

I like the two prong approach BUT you're gonna have to pratice this. can't give you a guaranteed killer recipe because you methods will vary.

Smoke it in the smoker to a medium temp, keep the smoker temp low so the meat gets some smoke. Don't cook it fully.

Make the chili and SMOKE the overall chili, just like you do beans (you could possibly skip step one above the first time, just to try)

Cook on a lower temp to give it more time in the smoke.

Try it and report back. Photos are a plus

Yea. I'd like to hear it. You've peaked my interest.

I will make a small test run on Thursday and report back. Thanks for the suggestion. You guys are the best!!

The J.O.B. got in the way and was not able to make a test run on Thursday, as planned.
Friday evening I started the process by cooking the onion, peppers, garlic and venison. Also I added all the seasoning and spices to the mixture. Since the smoker was going to be on for 4 to 5 hours I prepared 3 racks of Baby Back Ribs.
Saturday morning at 5 AM, placed the venison mixture in an aluminum pan along with the beans and chili base ingredients. Added a bottle of Yuengling’s Black and Tan and gave everything a good stirring. At 5.30 AM, I placed the ribs on the bottom shelf of the smoker and placed the pan of chili on the top shelf. Set the smoker for 225 degF and placed 3 oz. of hickory and 2 charcoal briquettes in the wood box.

At 8 AM, opened the smoker and flipped the ribs over and gave the chili another stirring. The ribs were done cooking at 10:30 AM, took every thing out of the smoker. I removed the chili from the aluminum pan and transferred it to a crock pot and headed to the club.

Results: Chili had a nice brown color from being in the smoker. When you lifted the lid off the crock pot the smoke aroma grabbed you attention. Myself and many other loved the smoked chili. There were 18 chili entries in the completion, I did not place but my crock pot was empty at the end of the day, so there was a lot of return trips to the crock pot for second and third helpings.

Looking through the fridge for something to make for lunch and ran across some left over chili in the freezer. Hmmm, wonder if I can smoke this? Found this thread and figured I'd give it a go.

Nuked it for a while to defrost it a bit, into a pan and into the smoker for about an hour with a couple small chunks of mesquite. Stirred a couple times while it heated up.

Actually came out pretty tasty, just a slight hint of smoke flavor. Might actually try this with a full batch of chili this fall.

To me, a really good chili requires cooking a variety of ingredients in something of a set order, and in a series of timed steps. In addition to meat, you're dealing with vegetables, spices, and, depending on your recipe, possibly a number of other items. While it sounds interesting, it seems to me that making chili from start to finish in a smoker probably wouldn't produce the best results

The primary meats in my chili recipe are beef chuck and pork shoulder, cut into 1" cubes. I usually apply a light rub to the cubes and smoke them at 150F for around 1.5 hours then proceed as usual with my standard recipe. Simple, with great results every time.

I was actually going to cook my chili as usual, but then at the end throw it in the smoker for about an hour.

I originally started out using Kit Anderson's Bad Attitude Chili as my starting point years ago with a few changes over the years, chuck instead of hamburger and I usually try to use at least five different types of chile's.

dls and Cal. Care to share the recipes?

As Tom said....

quote:

Most folks that cook enough briskets for practice,toss the chunks into chili,hash,enchiladas,burritos,etc.

Fine dinin'.

Chopped up points work great for this as well. I've got the neighbors who make chili converted as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Pags:
dls and Cal. Care to share the recipes?

I'll be glad to share my chili recipe. However, I just checked it it and it's full of a bunch of abbreviations and personal code that I understand, but probably would be meaningless to you. I'll clean it up shortly and post.