My First Cold Smoked Cheese

[BruceB]

Firing up the A-Maze-N Tube smoker with apple pellets.

Thin blue starting to roll.


Cheddar, Colby/Jack, Pepper Jack, Colby and Gouda on the smoke.

The finished product, after 3 hours in the smoke.



All wrapped up and ready for their 3 week rest. I wrapped the individual pieces in plastic wrap for those packages that have two pieces in them.



I learned a few things. Don't put your smoker in the sun when doing this, it also happens to be sunny and about 53 degrees here today. You ideally want the temp of your cooker to stay below 70 so that you don't run into issues of the cheese sweating and eventually melting. Mine was running 80-90 and I took the cheese off when I noticed it starting to sweat.

The tube smoker works as advertised and puts out some good smoke.

 

[IamMadMan]

Awesome job...

Sweating cheese is common, but the lower the temperature the better.

 

[blazinfire]

That's some nice looking cheese! Looking forward to doing my 2nd cheese smoke soon. Right now we're getting hit with nice 60 degree weather! So Baby back ribs and chicken wings goes on the smoker now! :thumb:

 

[Smokeoholic]

Very nice...

Thanks

 

[ShadowDriver]

Thanks, Bruce!

This is one of the reasons I bought the tube smoker.... Thanks for sharing your adventure.

Any lessons learned you'd be willing to share other than the sunshine bit?

Interested in how those taste after a couple of weeks.

 

[Big George's BBQ]

That is going to be good

 

[speed2486]

Your cheese looks great Bruce!

 

[Smoke Dawg]

Nice work!

 

[BruceB]

Thanks, Bruce!

This is one of the reasons I bought the tube smoker.... Thanks for sharing your adventure.

Any lessons learned you'd be willing to share other than the sunshine bit?

Interested in how those taste after a couple of weeks.

Not really, I did learn that a full tube of apple pellets will burn about 5 hours. I think the biggest lesson learned was to either cold smoke an a cooler day and/or keep the cooker out of the sun.
Everything else went pretty much as expected and as I learned from reading other threads here about smoking cheese before attempting it.

Also, most reading I did on the subject and videos on YouTube, people were smoking for between 2 and 4 hours, my original plan was to go for 4, but when I had temp issues I pulled at 3 hours and the cheese had a nice color to it. In a way I'm glad I pulled at 3 hours this will give me some idea how long to smoke the next batch for.

 

[Smoke on Badger Mountain]

Looks great Bruce.

 

[THoey1963]

Looks nice Bruce. I may have to put one of those tubes on my family gift list. I'd love to try some cheese. Might be hard to keep the temp low enough in SoTex.

 

[Smoking Piney]

Nice work on the cheese. I have the maze version of this smoker. They rock!

 

[ebijack]

Nice! I'd also be interested to hear how you like it at 3 hrs.
I smoked some fresh Mozzarella and some Swedish Fontina yesterday on my mini using the maze. That dang wind yesterday was a biatch. Around 65* inside the mini. Even though the area was block fairly well, the wind kept blowing down thru the exhaust and out the intake. Had to restart a second time and rotate the mini best I could to block the wind. 4 hr smoke (one row of the maze). Vac sealed and into the fridge for a few weeks. The mozzarella never stopped sweating, lots of liquids thru out the smoke.

 

[JDM46]

Looks nice Bruce. I may have to put one of those tubes on my family gift list. I'd love to try some cheese. Might be hard to keep the temp low enough in SoTex.

Cool temps are usually not a problem in North Dakota.
During the summer months, I fill the water pan of WSM with ice.
Works for me.