Due to a gross miscalculation and communication error, I ended up with way more pork belly from my butcher than I had planned on. This will be covered in a post late into the weekend. In the meantime, the wife and I will have a ridiculous amount of bacon on hand, and to problem solve I suggested that we give out homemade "baskets" of smoked goods that I have made as Christmas gifts. The gift baskets will have my homemade bacon, homemade smoked cheese, my recently made homemade bresaola, homemade smoked salt, and homemade smoked peppercorns. To ensure that the cheese was ready for consumption by Christmas, I smoked them tonight.
I went with apple pellets, and decided to make a point by lighting two ends.
The wife and I picked out these cheeses, based on our wild guesses about what our friends/family would prefer.
I grabbed a small paper towel and a sharpie to make myself a "map" so that I would remember which was which when they came out of the smoker.
Here is the "before" shot. As you can see, I cut the bricks into two. It worked out to be around $1.70 a slab this way.
Thin blue smoke, doing its thing.
Here is the "after" shot.
Normally, I have been using the Sharpie to write directly on the package. The wife wants to use some fancy label machine we supposedly have somewhere, so I used masking tape to remember later on which brick was which.
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS!
The details:
Smoker: MES40 with AMNPS
Wood: Apple pellets, lit on two ends
Smoker Temperature: Cold smoked
Ambient Temperature: About 45 degrees
Duration: 2 hours
I went with apple pellets, and decided to make a point by lighting two ends.
The wife and I picked out these cheeses, based on our wild guesses about what our friends/family would prefer.
I grabbed a small paper towel and a sharpie to make myself a "map" so that I would remember which was which when they came out of the smoker.
Here is the "before" shot. As you can see, I cut the bricks into two. It worked out to be around $1.70 a slab this way.
Thin blue smoke, doing its thing.
Here is the "after" shot.
Normally, I have been using the Sharpie to write directly on the package. The wife wants to use some fancy label machine we supposedly have somewhere, so I used masking tape to remember later on which brick was which.
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS!
The details:
Smoker: MES40 with AMNPS
Wood: Apple pellets, lit on two ends
Smoker Temperature: Cold smoked
Ambient Temperature: About 45 degrees
Duration: 2 hours
