Cooking chili with beer? Need help!

[CollegeKidCooker]

I'm a novice at cooking, so be kind :)

While making chilli for the third time in my life, I decided to mix up the recipe a little bit. I had read somewhere that you can add beer to your chilli, and I did, but I can't tell how it made a real difference...my guess it it made it a bit sweeter & thicker.

Does anyone know what exactly beer does to your chilli? Does it make it thicker? Sweeter? Should I use light or dark beer? When should I add it in?

Thank you!!!

[pacanis]

I cook everything with beer, CKC. Not neccesarily in the dish mind you, but it does seem to make the everything taste better

Since it is your recipe, I think only you can tell us how it made your chili taste different or changed the texture at all. Hopefully for the better, but not everything you try or see done neccesarily works for you.

And Welcome!

[BubbaGourmet]

CKC
If your chili recipe had any form of tomato in it, there are flavor compounds in tomatos that are only soluble in alcohol. Therefore they tend to bring out many of the tomatos inherent flavor characteristics such as sweetness, fruitiness, etc. The beer itself (depends on the style) can have a nice herbal quality from hops plus a bit of sweetness from the malted barley.