Cold Smoked Cheese
I was down to my last packet of smoked cheese in the fridge, so it was time to do another batch. It's been cold enough and I finally had the time to do it. I buy the cheapest cheddar I can find fro...
Forum Discussion
opnspaces wrote:
Just curious does the smoke flavor permeate all the way through the cheese? Or is it just on the surface and a few millimeters into the cheese itself leaving the center untouched?
That's REALLY hard to answer. I guess I could experiment and cut off the outer core to see where the smokey flavor ends, but the whiskey might take over and kill the science.
I want to say that it permeates pretty deeply, but I couldn't say how far.
Here are some other empirical points that might add some insights, but without really answering your question.
- For starters, the amount of smoke, the dimensions of the cheese, and the length of the smoking vary for every cook, so there really isn't an all-or-nothing answer. It reminds me of a guy I was dining with who told me I shouldn't drink ice tea because it's a diuretic and will dehydrate me. My counter was: who knows how weak or strong they make it and how do you know how much ice I added? I reckon that my glass of ice tea went through me faster than a glass of water, but to what degree?
- After you smoke it, you're supposed to wait for two weeks to allow the smoke flavor to "mellow" and make it edible. It's vacuum sealed though, so where does that smoky flavor go? Does it permeate down into the cheese? Does it leech into the plastic wrapper (I hope not)?
So I guess my answer is that there really isn't one single boolean answer, but there are various factors that would affect it, kind of like the factors that create a smoke ring on a piece of meat.
