Tana Harter knows what she wants in her chili: creamy heartiness, a glisten and glow, melt-in-your-mouth meat and consistent spiciness. But half an hour before judging began at the 2018 International Chili Society World Championship Chili Cook-Off in St. Louis, her pot wasn’t meeting her personal criteria. She stirred in the one ingredient she knew would fix it.

Ms. Harter, a life coach from Leesburg, Va., won the traditional red category that year by adding two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar. “It was a crutch for me for a while,” she said.

She has competed in six to 10 chili cook-offs a year for more than a decade, and can’t deny that vinegar is a winning secret ingredient. “I won $25,000 using apple cider vinegar. You got to look at the facts, and that is the fact.”

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