Need Suggestions for Smoking Cheese in MES40 with AMNPS

OK!  Thanks, guys!

I got the MES out and set it on its lowest temp for about 5 minutes then turned it off.  It got up to about 100*.  I let it cool with the door open to 95* then put the cheese in on the top rack.  I'm doing about a dozen mozz sticks and about a lb each of colby, mild cheddar and sharp cheddar.  I decided to cut the bricks in to ~1x~1xhowever-wide-they-were to get maximum smoke penetration.  I put some Perfect Mix pellets in the AMNPS, spritzed with iso alcohol and lit 'em up with a Bernzomatic.  I'm getting a good smoke about 15 minutes in.  I'm checking the cheese every 10 minutes or so and will put some ice in the water pan at about 20 more minutes.  The danged MES won't let me have a temp reading without turning the heating element on and I don't have another functioning thermo right now.

I got pics on the counter and more in the smoker.  Will continue until done.  If not a complete disaster, I'll post some later.

Again, thanks for the help!

UPDATE:

I just checked on the cheese and I had lost TBS.  First time that has ever happened to me with the AMNPS.  It is a tiny bit windy today; so I put the chip loader back in the chute and pulled it out only about 2" and lit the pellets again.  I had a good yellow-orange flame on the first coupla inches of pellets when I closed the door.  TBS has returned but will check again in a few minutes to be sure.  No ice yet.  Cheese is still firm and not even sweating.

FINISH

Thanks to Scarbelly, Alelover, Alesia, and Redneck, I got my  first cheese smoke attempt behind me today.

This first pic shows the cheese before it was re-sized for the smoker.  Mozz sticks are obvious.  The back left is mild cheddar,

the middle is sharp cheddar, and the front is Colby long before they saw the smoker.  Here they were coming up to room temp

after having been in the fridge.



Here we see it after making smaller chunks.  Toothpics help me keep track of what's what.  2 means mild cheddar; 1 is sharp cheddar

and none is colby.



Here you see the rack going into the top position in the MES40.  Notice that I thought better of the arrangement for the mozz

and laid it across the rails lest it shrink and fall through.  At this point the unit was reading 95* with the door open.   I then lit

My AMNPS with the Perfect Mix #2 pellets and got them going.  I removed the chip tray and left the loader out of the unit.

This was a mistake because I came back about 25 minutes later and there was no TBS.  Apparently the slight gusty wind

we had today was too much for good smoke.  I re-lit the pellets and had the first couple of inches with an orange flame and

put it back into the MES on the rails at the left of the element - down low.  I put the chute loader in and left it standing about

an inch or 2 from the closed position.  Ten minutes later the TBS was flowing.



Here they are after about a 4 hour smoke.  Didn't pay too much attention to time; however, one row of the pellets

was all I used and they were all turned to ash.  No peeking.  No opening the door until I took out this rack. 

You can see that the inital temp was too high and that I should have used no heat except the AMNPS; however, I had

no reliable thermometer on hand to read so I though I'd warm the smoker a bit then open it and let it cool down.  When

I saw the cheese wilting I put a pan full of ice cubes on the rack above the element which by this time had been turned

off for a while.  I then forgot about what was happening for a few hours.  When I saw that I had used up all the pellets and

the time had been between 3 and 4 hours, I just let them sit until I finished up a couple of other chores.



This shot shows what the early temp did to the Colby.  I got a lot less of the melting over the rack rails on the cheddar.

This tells me that either Colby is more sensitive or that the right side was getting more heat. The exhaust stack was

less than 6 inches above these pieces.  Next time I WILL NOT WARM THE MES AT ALL.  I thought it would give me

a baseline temp and that knowing where I started if I left the door open for 20 minutes or so that all would be well.

Apparently the racks absorbed some heat and retained it for quite a while, probably stopping when I put a pan of ice in.



Here you see my first attempt to vacuum pack the cheese.  I bought a $20 Deni sealer from Amazon.  I think I'm going

to send it back.  The bags are way to light weight.  Applying vacuum then sealing seemed to be working but I noticed that 

air had already crept in by the time I got them to the fridge.  I will check them several times over the next few days and

get pics to see if they bloat up instead of staying sucked up.  Looks like when you spend cheap you get cheap.



There is now a mark on the calendar for May 10 saying that the smoked cheese aging is complete.

Will have to wait until then to give you a taste report.

Thanks to all who so generously read my plea for help and gave me the information I needed.  I think I'll do some more cold

smoking with better cheeses, no initial warm up, ice from the get go and 2 rows of pellets to give me a longer smoke - next time!

Thanks for staying tuned.  Your regular programming will resume shortly.

-rh

Chef JimmyJ said:

I don't want to hurt your feelings but I'm wondering why you turned on the Heat when all the responding members said it is not needed even if the outside temp was 47*F? No big deal and a good lesson learned. Looks like you are going to have some great Cheese...JJ

Click to expand...

Howdy JJ!

There ain't no hurt left in my feelings at my age!

I was futzing around with the MES trying to see if there was any way I could use the built in sensor to tell me the temps inside the box.  Like hiding my own Easter eggs, I've managed to hide my temp probes for my Maverick and my Acu-Rite from myself.  I was hoping that I could get the control unit to display the temp.  No joys!  The only way I could make the temp sensor display was to turn the unit on.  I only left it on for a minute or 2 at the lowest setting, 100*, and I had the door open; but the ambient was in the 80's and it heated the box up pretty fast before I got it turned off.  I really, REALLY wish that MES would make a better control unit, one that would allow you to take temp readings without causing the heating element to come on, one that could be set to about 80*, one that would let you control the cut-off point with only the time and only the temp not requiring that you set both before the element will heat.

I've marked it up to a learning experience.

I agree with Redneck.  You won't need any heat.  If the ambient temps are in the 80's, you might even need to add ice to cool it a bit.

Check the temperature inside your smoker overnight.  If it's above 80*F, it's probably too hot.  That is surely to be the case in GA in the summertime; so try putting ice in the smoker and checking the temp.  Use enough ice to cover one rack or maybe a little more.  Check temps for 3, 4, 5 hours and see how quick it drops.  Finally, do a dry run with your smoke source and ice.  Check those temps over a period of time, too.  This will tell you about how much the smoke source adds to the equation.

Of course, I jumped right in with both feet and got mixed results.  Too impatient, I guess; but I learned that I can probably control the temp inside my MES with ambient temp is in the 80s, holding it low enough to smoke cheese using pellets in an AMNPS.

I think that the answer to "how high" is probably in the 80-90* range inside your smoker.  In reading up before I did mine, I saw where people use a tray of chips outside of a cardboard box with a tube running to the box and sealed with tape.  The cheese goes inside the box.  I suspect, however, that they live above the Mason-Dixon line or used the method during the winter.

FWIW, here in TX we had 90 days of triple digits last summer with 43 in a row (IIRC).  I don't think I could have got the inside of an MES below 90*F with anything less than a meat locker chiller.  And don't tell me it was a dry heat.  Hell all heat that high is dry 'cause all the wet is burnt out of it.