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Super_Dave
Explorer
Jan 24, 2015

Smoked cheese - first efforts

This is my first try at smoking cheese. I wanted to see if I could control a low temperature in my new smoker without an additional device. When you see the temp keep climbing, you get a little nervous at where it might stop. Overall, I think everything went pretty well. I will wrap the cheese and let it mellow for a few days before tasting it to see if I need to up the smoke or cut back on it. I did some medium cheddar, Colby - Jack and some Monterey Jack for starters.

This was pretty much representative of my experience. Smoker box temperatures were 86 - 88 and the cheese level temps seemed to be around 5 degrees lower than the box temp throughout with the pans of ice underneath.



Shot of how everything was loaded.



Cheese:



  • Never had 'smoked' cheese...I think would recall. Interesting Dave and look forward to your tasting comments.

    Born and raised in Green Bay so access to fresh cheese was readily available in stores but better yet going right to the many cheese factories.
  • The type of cheddar, I believe, is based on how long it has been aged. Costco had mild, medium & sharp in the 2.5 lbs blocks. I just split the difference for my first experiment. The sharp is a little strong for my tastes.
  • Good looking cheeses and I can see them making a fine addition to an over the top mac and cheese dish.

    Could you tell me what a medium cheddar is....does that also mean sharp?

    Oh and ingenious use of the potato; got to remember that trick.
  • I think you will get a better smoke flavor if you wrap the cheese in plastic wrap and let it mellow for a week or so. You will probable have to play with the smoke times depending on how much smoke flavor you want. It will be a trial and error type thing as we don't know how much smoke flavor you want..

    Temps looked good so you are on the right track
  • I concluded that it is a real balancing act to be able to have enough heat to produce smoke but keep it cool enough to not melt the cheese. There are many devices sold that are like incense burners to produce smoke with little heat gain but I wanted to see if I could manage my existing equipment without the aide of the separate smoke generators. What I found that worked best for me was to generate smoke quickly before the box got really hot and then shut everything down. I could get about 1:15 - 1:20 worth of smoke from a quick start with the heat. So, both my batches received about an hour and a half worth of smoke. Later taste testing will give me an idea how to adjust that up or down.
  • ^^^^yes, please do, as well as any details you'd care to share.