Cold Smoking Cheese

[ClintHTX]

Been wanting to try this for a while now. Im going to use a soldering iron and a tin can full of wood chips. Any advice on what temp it needs to be at, how long, and what flavor of wood should i try?

[IamMadMan]

Cheese should be smoked under 80°, but I like to keep things about 50-55°.

The length of smoking time can vary on smoker size, and size of the cheese blocks.

I use an A-Maze-N Pellet smoker in my smoker without heat. I smoke about two hours and taste, if I need to go slightly longer I can. But if you over smoke it, you can't go back.

I prefer to use apple, or cherry pellets for a milder flavor. Hickory and Mesquite can over power the cheese if left in the smoke too long.

Keep a small block of cheese just for sampling in the smoker, and then in the resting period in the refrigerator. When you have the desired taste after being in the fridge, you can then vac-seal.

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[EricF]

I always do this on a night that the weather will be in the 30's overnight. Depending on how hot you get it on how long the cheese can stay in the smoke. With the set up you will be using I bet you could get at least a 6 six hour run. Use a very mild flavor wood, any of your fruit wood chips would be ideal for this. Make sure they are presoaked so as to not have flame up issues. You want just a very small amount of smoke to wisp over the cheese not a billowing smoke.

If you find you like smoke cheese I got myself an a-maze-n-smoker that does this same cold smoke principle, I really love it for this task.

Total agree with keeping the temp in the 50 degree range. Also I slice my blocks of cheese into smaller ones to add more surface space to come into contact with the cheese.

Good luck!
Eric

[ClintHTX]

Planning on using my kettle for the smoker. How long does it need to set in fridge before eating?

[aawa]

You want to keep your cheese below 75ish degrees so it doesn't sweat. If you go above 90 degrees you will end up with melted cheese. After you smoke, you wrap it tight or vacuum seal it, I like to let mine rest for 2 weeks minimum. I have a batch that is resting for 3 weeks before I broke open the Mozzarella yesterday which turned out great. Still have meunster, cheddar, co-jack, chile lime gouda, and chipotle gouda from the same batch still resting.

The kettle will work fine for cold smoking. You can even use a cardboard box to cold smoke if you wanted too.

[ClintHTX]

Do I need to slice the cheese into blocks or smaller chunks or just leave it in a whole block?

[chriscw81]

Good advice aawa is offering. You won't find a definitive answer on how long to let your cheese mellow. I have let it mellow only a few hours to 3 months. I feel like a month is MY sweet spot. Definitely look at the a-maze-n smoker(tube or maze), they are both great products. I even made a cold smoker out of expanded metal kind of like the maze smoker. I've cold smoked in a box, a kamado, and a Weber OTG. Moral of the story.....get creative and keep the temps down....and don't forget the pron.

Also, you can look through my posts to see the expanded metal smoker. I've used the tin can and solder pen method and I had flare up problems, then again, I didn't soak my chips.


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[chriscw81]

Originally Posted by CarlWayne

Do I need to slice the cheese into blocks or smaller chunks or just leave it in a whole block?

Cut it up in chunks maybe the size of your fist. You want it to get plenty of surface area contacting smoke.



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[ClintHTX]

I have a smoking box for gas grills that you put chips in and " smoke" with. I was thinking of drilling a hole in it and loading it with chips instead of using the can. Also I will be using kettle should I have the cheese directly over the smoke or have it indirect?



What the box looks like.

[ClintHTX]

Bump

[aawa]

If you use the kettle you will want to put the cheese on the other side of the kettle from the heat source. Also you will want to keep the exhaust vent above the fire as opposed to above the cheese to help keep the temps down. Fellow brethren JMSeltzer has a youtube channel ManCaveMeals where he uses the A-Maze-N Tube smoker and his kettle. He shows some tricks with the kettle on how to keep temperatures down with the placement of bricks and such as well as cracking the lid and exhaust placement. I would give that a watch to get the pointers for cold smoking on the kettle.

I dont cut the cheese up whenever I smoke. I just buy the blocks of cheese they sell at the grocery store, unpackage them and then put them in the smoker.


With the container that you have, I would suggest doing a test run without cheese to see how easy it is to keep temperatures below 75 degrees and how long it will burn for.