pineywoods
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hi , i just read your text here and was wondering .. i have smoked some cheese before and thought ...wow ...this is good .. lol . now i went and bought some the other day ..and well mine wasn't so good after all.. so i have a question for you then, what of cheeses do you use ..(any of that jalapeno stuff ) but anyways ,cheddar ,and Gouda and maybe some Havarti,i think its called. and then do you maybe do a double smoke .. and then lastly say ruffly how long .. just till it changes color top a darker .
thanks again
p.S i hope you can read my chicken scratch .. thanks again
I realize I'm not the one you asked but since he did answer let me also add my two cents.
We smoke a lot of different cheeses Cheddar, Gouda, Havarti, Colby Jack, Mozzarella, Habenaro, Jalapeno, heck I even unwrap those individual wrapped round snack like cheeses. I've done lots of others I can't think of right now to basically I'll try something new if I can find it while I'm doing cheese. We didn't care for smoked Brie or even Swiss for some reason. I'll be doing another large cheese smoke in the next couple weeks and I'll post it and the varieties.
You said you tried smoking some did you let it age before trying it? Many of us say you have to let it age about 14 days before you even try it. There are those that argue with us that you should be able to eat it right out of the smoker if you can't you over smoked it. Well to each there own but I and many others have smoked a lot of cheese over the years and let it age and people sure seem to like it otherwise I don't think they'd always be asking for more.
My wife is a nurse in a busy ER and works 12 hour shifts they rarely get time to eat "lunch" so every shift she works she takes in some smoked cheese cubes and her and her co workers snack on it all shift so over the years literally thousands of people have tried smoked cheese and pretty much everyone looks for more lol
Most of the time I will use apple pellets and smoke for 4.5-7 hours then bring it inside and check to make sure it's dry depending on heat and humidity sometimes it's not and I will leave it sit out until it's dry usually doesn't take more than a couple hours. I have on rare occasion had to wipe the wet off the cheese with paper towels but that is rare and I live in Fl where it can get really humid. Once dry I cut it up some into smaller blocks and put different varieties intoa vacuum seal bag and the wife will vacuum seal. Cutting into the smaller blocks and mixing them up gives her a variety pack when she goes to cube it up before taking it into work. We mark the date of smoke on every package then into the fridge for at least 14 days before she starts to use any of it.
Try it again it's not hard to smoke it and once you get the hang of it you'll try to figure out why you didn't start smoking it long ago. I've had a couple friends start smoking cheese and inevitably they call me the day they did their first batch and ask what they did wrong they took it and tried it and it's terrible they wasted all that cheese yada yada and when they are done ranting I ask them what I told them about sealing it and putting it in the fridge to let the smoke kind of meld and even out. Oh yea you did tell me that but I had to try a piece and it was terrible I think I messed it up I tell them let me know in two weeks how it tastes and when they do it's great.
Good luck and let us know how it goes