cold smoke cream cheese

[buffalo bob]

I have been cold smoking hard cheeses successfuly and would now like to try soft cheeses beginning with cream cheese. I am using MES 30 with Masterbuilt cold smoke unit. Any helpfull hints will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[pc farmer]

I have done butter in my mes 30 with Todd's AMNS.

I don't know how the mb cold smoker works.

Does the mes have to be turn on with heat?

 

[buffalo bob]

No, the only heat occurs in the cold smoke onit. No heat in the MES

 

[rgautheir20420]

I've heard of people having issues keeping the temps cold enough to cold smoke cheese using the MB attachment. Have you tested the chamber for the ambient temps when running it? I can't see your location, so you're weather might help keep temps down depending where you're at.

 

[buffalo bob]

I live in northern Michigan. I like to smoke hard cheese when the ambient temp. is below 60 deg. I do not plug in the MES. The MES smoke chamber temp when off is pretty close to outside temp but when using the cold smoke attachment it increases by about 10 deg. So, what I would like to know is: what is the max temp to have in the MES to abtain a good result without further softening an already soft cheese? I plan to smoke for about 3 hrs.... any comments?

 

[driedstick]

I would do it just like your hard cheese, for about 2-3 hrs and do a small batch and see how it comes out, then you can go larger from there. This is how I do butter and comes out Great, I do not have a MES but I have old fridge with just Todds AMPS 

Good luck and let us know.

A full smoker is a happy smoker

DS

 

[bad santa]

I cold smoke in  a freezer that's been converted to a smoker and I use Todd's AMZNPS without heat and as long as the outside temps are below 70 degrees and the humidity is below 65 the cream cheese I've done in the past has always been good. I wipe down and blot any moisture on the block with paper towels before placing into the smoker and set the cheese onto a Q mat to help keep it from sagging into the grates, and have also set them on a narrow strip of foil. I place the bricks of the C. Chese on it's long and narrow side and smoke for 2.5 to 3 hrs. 

You may want to wait until night time so that the smoker will be good and cold as well as the cheese out of the refridgerator. Could also place a large bowl of ice into your smoker below the cheese to help keep temps down inside your smoker.

Upper Mich. night temps should be fine to keep the cheese from weeping or sagging. Good luck and let us know how it went. Smoked cream cheese is great !

 

[navyjeremy]

I have done cream cheese many times and it turns out AMAZING!!!!!  The good thing about it is that you don't have to let it sit in the fridge for a month.  Just let it get cold and put in on some Triscuits

 

[1finder]

When cold smoking any cheeses hard or soft, I place them directly on shelves. Putting butter, cheese, salt all together in smoker, w/ butter on top rack, soft cheeses on next, hard cheeses then salts/peppercorns/spices underneath. Never tried using Qmats for this, always did it this way before the mats came into my life.
As stated earlier cream cheese doesn't need to mellow and smoked cream cheese in a buffalo chicken dip is mighty tasty. Just put the cream cheeses in a ziplock sandwich bag and store in fridge. Butter freezes well to use as needed and store the salt/peppercorns or whatever spices your cold smoking how you normally store them.

Good luck cold smoking...

 

[buffalo bob]

Thanks to all who replied. One thing that I was wondering about was if it was neccesary to "cure" cream cheese like hard cheeses for weeks. It appears from your comments that it should be ready to eat right after smoking... am I correct?

 

[java]

We still age our cream cheese to let it mellow a bit, it seems to let the smoke absorb into the middle of the block.

We just cut the foil and leave it on the bottom the put it on the rack, flip it over on the foil half way thru and let let her go.

super easy and way to delish.( last time we did 2 cases)