Recipe by Back Forty Barbeque

Back Forty’s Smoked Brisket Chili

Make Back Forty’s smoked brisket chili with bacon, Dunkel beer, chipotle and three kinds of beans. A hearty batch for about 20, simmered low and slow.

About 20 servings · Simmer about 1 hour; longer is better

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Published September 24, 2026

Smoked brisket chili with melted cheese, beans and sauce-coated brisket, served with garlic bread

What you'll need

About 20 servings · Use a 12 L pot or larger.

Estimated batch volume: 8–9 L, before a long simmer. Pot size includes room to stir; divide large batches between pots if needed.

How we sized the pot

For 20 servings: canned ingredients total about 4.6 L before draining; beer and coffee about 0.6 L; brisket about 1.25 L; chopped vegetables, bacon, fat and spices roughly 2 L. That is about 8.5 L of measured ingredients. Draining, settling and simmering change the actual volume, so allow roughly 8–9 L and choose a 12 L pot.

Heat: omit jalapeños or use 5 for milder chili; use 20 for extra spicy. Chipotles and chili powder still contribute heat.

4 Tbsp beef tallow (or bacon fat, canola oil or another neutral cooking oil)
½ lb bacon
2 white onions
10 jalapeños, chopped
2 red bell peppers
9 cloves garlic
5 cups smoked brisket, shredded or cut into approximately 1 cm cubes
2 Tbsp cumin
5 Tbsp chili powder
500 mL Dunkel beer
3 chipotle peppers in adobo
½ cup coffee
2 × 796 mL cans diced tomatoes
3 × 398 mL cans tomato sauce
1 × 540 mL can black beans, drained
1 × 398 mL can red kidney beans, drained
1 × 341 mL can corn
1 × 540 mL can white kidney beans

Measures: 16 Tbsp = 1 cup; liquid conversions use a US cup (about 237 mL). One 8 lb cooked brisket yields roughly 26 cups chopped; measure the required cups because chopping and packing vary.

Brisket estimate: USDA cooked, diced brisket, 140 g per cup. Whole-brisket amounts are a preparation guide, not extra meat to add.

Quantities and the printed recipe follow your serving count. For fractional vegetables, chop and measure the portion. Simmer until ready rather than multiplying the cooking time.

Back Forty’s smoked brisket chili starts with bacon sizzling in the pot. Onions follow, softening and taking on a touch of colour with beef tallow before red peppers, smoky brisket and garlic build the base of a generous pot.

Use already-smoked brisket, cut into roughly 1 cm pieces. They do not need to be perfect cubes: little irregular edges and bits of bark belong here. This batch feeds about 20 and is good after an hour of simmering, but longer is better.

Method

1
Get everything ready, then fry the bacon first. Chop the onions and red peppers, mince the garlic, chop the chipotles and cut the smoked brisket into roughly 1 cm pieces. Open the cans and drain the black beans and red kidney beans. Dice the bacon and fry it over medium heat in a large, heavy chili pot until browned, stirring regularly. Choose a pot with plenty of room for the rest of this generous batch.
Small, hand-cut pieces of smoked brisket, onions and red peppers: the starting point.
2
Add the measured beef tallow to the bacon in the same pot and let it melt, then add the onions and chopped jalapeños. Use 10 jalapeños for the original 20-serving batch; omit them or halve the amount for milder chili, or double it for extra spicy. Follow the scaled ingredient list for your batch. Bacon fat or a neutral cooking oil works in place of tallow in the same quantity. Sauté, stirring regularly, until the onions begin to soften; keep the heat moderate so they colour gradually rather than scorch.
3
Add the red peppers about halfway through cooking the onions. Continue sautéing them together until the onions are slightly caramelized, with light golden edges, and the peppers have begun to soften. You are building a gently sweet base, not trying to deeply brown every piece.
4
Stir in the brisket. Toss the small pieces through the onions and peppers and sauté until warmed through. The brisket is already cooked, so it only needs to heat up and mingle with the vegetables—not cook from raw or develop a hard crust.
5
Add the garlic and stir just until aromatic, about 30–60 seconds. Keep it moving through the warm fat and vegetables, and move on before it browns. That fresh garlic smell is your cue for the next step.
Garlic goes in after the vegetables have softened—just long enough to become aromatic.
6
Deglaze the pot with a splash of the measured Dunkel beer, or some of the canned diced tomatoes and their juice. Scrape the bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen the browned bits into the liquid. Use ingredients from the recipe quantities, not extra beer or tomatoes.
Dunkel beer brings a rich, malty note to the pot.
7
Build the sauce one ingredient at a time, stirring after each addition. Add the remaining diced tomatoes first, then the tomato sauce, then the remaining beer. Stir in the chopped chipotle peppers in adobo, followed by the cumin and then the chili powder. Finally, pour in the measured coffee and stir it through the tomato base.
Chop the chipotles so their smoky heat spreads through the sauce.
8
Add the drained black beans, drained red kidney beans, white kidney beans and corn, one at a time. Fold each addition through gently so everything is evenly distributed without breaking up the beans.
9
Bring the chili to a gentle simmer, then turn the heat down to maintain slow, occasional bubbles. Simmer for about an hour; longer is better when you have the time. Stir down to the bottom regularly so nothing catches. If it thickens more than you want during a longer simmer, add a small splash of water. Taste before serving and let the smoked brisket, vegetables and sauce come together in every bowl.

This recipe makes about 20 servings—a big batch for a gathering or a hungry crowd. The simmering time starts after the ingredients have come together in the pot; it does not include smoking the brisket.

Use smoked brisket for this recipe, not raw brisket. The smoke is already in the meat before the chili starts cooking.

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