Looking for advice
 

I picked up one of the A-MAZE-N 12" pellet smoker tubes and am currently doing a trial run, started in the Performer 45 minutes in and the temp was already at 90 degrees. I moved it over to the Genesis s-330 20 minutes ago and my temp in the box is already at 82 degrees. I am planning to make a run of some smoked cheese on Monday when I smoke some ribs on the WSM. Any suggestions in advance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks- Matt

you can use a ice water pan to keep temps down and cool part of the day helps

The amaze-n-tube will raise ambient temps around 20 degrees. Not sure what the temps were in Virginia today, but it was 97 here. If your temps are near that, I wouldnt try cheese. If you are going to, pack ice all around it, and do it at night.

Winter is a good time for smoking cheese. When I just can't wait, I put the cheese in the freezer for 30 minutes, smoke for a while, back in freezer for 20 minutes, smoke ... repeat until done.

I only smoke cheese when it is cold weather so I don't have to worry about temps.

I find it hard getting the cheese in the those little papers and then licking one edge to seal them up before lighting it...:shocked:

Try cracking the lid of the grill, yes you want smoke, but you also want airflow to allow the smoke to roll across the surface of the cheese. As tom b stated an ice pan directly under the cheese will help.

Maybe consider starting the smoking process in the early morning hours when it is cooler and the sun isn't heating up the grill.

When sorting thru all of the basics of cold smoking, the main fact is that you are cold smoking so the cheese will not sweat or melt from heat.

The term "cold smoking" usually refers to smoking at temperatures of 90 degrees or less, something that can be quite difficult with the backyard smoker on a sunny day. Some books say that cheese should be smoked under 80°, but you will probably want to keep your cheese below 70° so it will not sweat, and if you go above 90 degrees you could possibly end up with some of the softer melted cheese.

I Personally like to keep things about 50-55° when working with cheese. You set the cheese on racks above trays / pans of ice into the cooker to keep the temperatures down during smoking. You can also take advantage of cooler outside temperatures to help achieve the lower temperatures associated with cold smoking. I do a lot of cold smoking in the fall, winter, and early spring when conditions are near perfect for cold smoking.

Supposed to be 58 degrees here tomorrow night, I am going to run the cheese smoke then. Thanks all for the advice.

Here is the start of my cheese smoking experiment, the ambient temp is 63, I have a 20 lb bag of ice in the water bowl of the wsm, 20 minutes in and both racks are holding at 61 degrees and the smoke is flowing off of the A-MAZE-N 12" smoke tube.

3 hours in and getting ready to pull the cheese and vacuum seal it for a couple months. Thanks to all for the advice, the 20 lb bowl of ice kept the temp down at 63 at it's highest point in the smoke. I guess we have to wait a while to see if the cheese turns out good with bbq delight apple pellets.