Chili: Stovetop vs smoker (or...)

[Attjack]

I haven't made chili any other way since trying Reed's recipe. The smoker is already going after you smoke the chuck roast and you definitely get extra smoke flavor finishing it on the smoker. I have finished it in an instant pot before but prefer just letting it ride in my Kamado.

Here are a couple of shots from the past. What's great is that you don't have to wait for the stall to completely break. I see a slow down around 170 but it's not that much longer to get to 180. I like to smoke the chuck roast with this split setup and then grill my veggies on the direct side when I pull it off. Then everything gets chopped and combined and it goes right back on the smoker.

[DaveD]

That looks great!

[CHNeal]

I’ve always made mine from brisket that I had previously smoked and froze as the last thing I’ve wanted to do after a 12-16 hour cook was…cook! So it’s always been stove top.
My next batch will be out of cast iron in the pit out back!

[DaveD]

Hey folks, resurrecting this thread from last November rather than start a new one. After my pilot run of chili some weeks ago (which, to placate my Austin music & foodie pal Jenni, I will term "chili beans" since I violate the cardinal Texas chili rule), and re-reading the great input on this thread, here is my next version. Like the first, it's built around the Carroll Shelby chili mix, which we really enjoyed the first time. This time I'm adding in some chopped, roasted Hatch green chile, so I give you: Chile Chili Beans

This time around, I'm using the other piece of leftover beef belly that I'd also used in v1.0. For the original belly cook, I divided the cut in half (or, for klflowers, I cleft it in twain) and seasoned one half with SPOG and the other with salt-free Henrik Hank's Bona Fide mixed up from the recipes he's generously shared here. V1.0 used the SPOG, which clocked in at ~20oz/550g, whereas the remaining Hank's piece was just 12oz/340g. So I augmented with a 6.5oz/185g portion of pulled smoked chuck from a cook a few weeks ago, which had also been seasoned with Hank's. Here's what those looked like on their cook days:

Belly:

Chuck:


For V2.0 today, I chunked up the belly and added in the pulled chuck, then heated them in the dutch oven in a dab of smoked wagyu tallow until all the fat in the belly had liquified.






Then added a 15oz/450ml can of tomato sauce, couple cups (470ml) water, similar sized can of diced tomatoes, 1/4 cup/60ml of chopped roasted green chile, the Shelby spice pack, and half the Shelby cayenne packet. Stirred it all up and simmered on the stovetop for 15 min or so.





Then it went into the oven, covered, set at 250F/120C, where it's been gently bubbling away with no risk of the bottom being burned. I really like how it's behaving compared to V1.0, where it was on the stove and despite frequent stirring, got some scorch on the bottom. At last check the color is looking very rich and robust, and the aroma...!!!!



Game plan is to add the can of red kidney beans near the end, and let it cook another 10 min or so, then taste to see if any salt is needed. Meanwhile, checking it every 30 min or so and stirring, and will turn off the oven in due course and let it hang until dinner time. So far so good.

[Mosca]

Do you drain your cans and rinse the beans, or do you just scoop it all out and dump?

[klflowers]

You cook that, you can cleft, chop, rent, sever, sunder, whatever the heck you want. Just save me a bowl.

[DaveD]

Mosca asked: "Do you drain your cans and rinse the beans, or do you just scoop it all out and dump?"

It's the latter, just opened the can and dumped it in.



Just did that a short while ago, cooked another 10 minutes, and now have the oven down to warming temp to let things sit until dinnertime. We tasted them at that point to see if any salt was needed, and none was. Tastes really great, with plenty of zip from both the green chile and the half-packet of cayenne... We'll be eating in a little over half an hour

[DaveD]

Deliverables! This chile chili was outstanding!! Absolutely delicious. Really nice heat from the green chile and the cayenne, and the smokiness of the meat works so well with the Shelby spice mixture. Yum!

[Henrik]

It sure looks fantastic! I haven’t thought of combining both pork belly and chuck, but I really dig the idea!!

[DaveD]

Honestly, the only reason I added the chuck is that the hunk of belly I had (and it was beef, not pork) wasn't big enough for a pot of chili, and I had plenty of pulled chuck on hand. It helped that the belly was chunks and the chuck was pulled, which made for a nice texture contrast. But not much other thought went into it than that, don't give me too much credit! But it did come out so well, I'd do it again for sure.