How "cold" can you "cold smoke"?

Cream cheese is a must! If you do cheese, let it mellow for a few days. It will be quite strong right off the smoker. Personally, I vacusuc the cheese and leave it in the fridge for several weeks.

Well, you don't want your stuff to freeze. :biggrin1:

I've smoked cheese when the outside temp is in the teens with no problem. I prefer doing my lox a little warmer, maybe upwards of the 70° or so. If your pit is getting into the 80°'s work on chilling it down for smoking cheese. Just keep your smoke gentle, and use one block of cheese for sampling during the smoke. If you taste any bitterness or see milk fats rising to the surface, pull the cheese off and let the smoke settle down. You never want your cheese to get too smokey while in the smoker, it's a sign that you are getting smoke build-up on the surface... and you don't want that....you want the cheese to absorb the smoke. Mellowing times can be up to several weeks to allow the flavor to get better,... but again you should be able to eat it right away, it just gets better over time.

I don't think you need to worry about getting too cold if your ambient temperatures are in the 70s. In fact, I think your estimate of 30s to 40s with a bag of ice may be optimistic.

For cheese, you should be okay if you can get to 50s or low 60s in the smoker.

CD

I prefer to cold smoke cheeses at around 40* whenever I can, the cheese seems to last longer than way when vacu-sealed. Once it rises in temp above that, the shelf life starts to diminish a bit from my experience. Stay above freezing though, otherwise the cheese will get weird. The limit on the other side of the spectrum is about 80*, that's when many cheeses begin to "sweat" and then their texture is essentially ruined. So technically, anywhere between 40 and 80 is where you want to be.