Smoked Ground Beef?

[Eo0014]

A while back, I saw a posting where the writer stated that he smoked ground beef to add to chili.  Love this idea and would like to try.

Question - do I brown the beef first then place frying pan in BS, or do I place the raw beef in the BS and let it cook?  How long?

[Gizmo]

I don't do chili with ground beef but the last batch I made, I did smoke the beef first.  I cold smoked it with all the peppers.  I do other preparations with the beef, sausage, etc. so that each layer of ingrediants for the chili can stand on its own for flavor. 
There would be no reason you couldn't hot smoke the beef but with the ground, you would need to have it in loaves or balls like the Ain't Mommas Meetloaf posts here.  Some of the small grid mats would also come in handy.  NePaSmoker shows them in some of his posts.

[standles]

Not that I have any experience with this just thinking out loud.

What about using some metal window screen laid of the rack. 
Scatter the meat over the screem and smoke a couple of hours.
Take inside brown off in skillet and add to chilli.


Steven

[IKnowWood]

What we do is use a steak and cook it all the way in the smoker and then cut it up into the chili.  I use a london Broil big steak for this.

ground would also work, but I would do it either

a) Cold smoked for 2 hours then finished on skillet (would need to add more liquid as 2 hours cold smoke will dry it some).

b) Hot smoke to cooked or just about then (in a roll or ball like meatloaf would be best)  then crumble into the skillet with rest to finish off.

If I was goign to do it, I would go Cold smoked for first attempt.