The Texas BBQ Forum

I thought I would put my new meat grinder to work this weekend and grind my own chili meat for a backyard cook-off this coming Saturday. I'm not sure why, but our local grocers that sell coarse ground chili meat charge an arm and a leg for it. Seems like it should be the same price as regular ground hamburger meat since it just went through a different grinding plate. That's a whole different story though....

I had a whole packer brisket and also some pork butt. Just eyeballing the brisket, I figured it would be close to an 80/20 mix. I didn't trim the brisket at all and just cut into cubes small enough to go into the grinder. Once it was ground, it appeared to be more of a 70/30 mix. Now I am worried about having greasy chili. I always brown my chili meat in a cast iron skillet and drain the fat before I add it to the chili pot, but I am still a bit concerned. I did grind up enough to do a test run at home this week, but I am just not sure what to expect. Have any of you ever ground up a packer brisket for chili meat? I am thinking that if it doesn't make a very good pot of chili that it should make some darn fine hamburgers. Oh, and the ground pork butt came out looking fine. I always add a bit of it to the mix as well.

tex

I grind a lot of briskets into burger and have done chili grind in the past. They do come out about 70/30 normally... I also always double grind my burger grind through the same plate. For the chili grind, if your browning and then draining the fat, you should not have a greasy chili problem.

Toby if you want to get it even leaner after draining the grease give the DO a quick wipe with a paper towel. Rinse the meat in a colander suspended over a bowl with the veg sprayer, that way you catch all the runoff. Pour all the liquid into a fat separator then add it back to the pot. this leans it up and retains the flavor.