Meat: cut vs chili grind. HEB meat vs good quality meat.

[Tess]

I'd like to know how many people prefer hand cut meat to chili grind? Some chili cooks outside Texas many not know what chili grind is....it may be known as sausage grind in your area. Some cooks in other areas are using ground chuck to cook with. HEB ( a chain grocery in Texas) produces a chuck chili grind that is greasy and contains organ parts. Would you cook with that? I'm talking to both competition cooks and at home cooks. Why would anyone cook with what I consider less than good quality meat?

:roll:

[Dragon]

My personal preference is to hand cut chuck roast (beef shoulder). I like a 1/2 inch dice. I suppose one might get away with standard ground beef (or even your chili grind, which is really just a coarser grind of what ever cut you like) at home when adding beans. But I'd imagine the judges wouldn't give much of a score to meat of poor quality regardless of the cut or grind.

[Tess]

Unfortunately, I asked this question because many cooks in this state want to use only chili grind and they're using inferior grade meat and the public likes it. I know from cooking competitively for 5yrs that cooks have a tendency to cook what they like instead of what the public likes. Now some cooks are cooking to the public but using meat I wouldn't feed my dog.However,I like cut meat and won't use inferior grade chili grind. If I wouldn't put it in my own mouth....I could not give to the public to judge.

[thehotpepper.com]

What's a good size to cut the meat? 1/4 cubes? Thanks