First shot at cold smoking

[dsk]

I tried cold smoking some cheese a couple of weekends ago in my Bradley. I don't have their cold smoker attachment, so the 125W puck heater was inside as usual. Even at 40F outside, it raised the temperature in the smoker to 100F, too hot for doing a cold smoke. So, at a thrift store I found a suitable box, and already I had a smoke tube plus a hose for having my Masterbuilt cold smoker remote from the MES. A bit of fabrication, and the Bradley is now configured for cold smoking as well.

So last weekend, with temperatures at 40F or below overnight, I loaded up the cheese again and and smoked it with about 6 inches of apple blend dust. I checked again in the middle of the night and decided I wanted to see more color so I loaded up maybe 4 inches of pellets as I had no more dust. The temperature in the smoker ran 4-5 degrees above ambient with the dust, and it was about 36F out when I put the pellets in so I just went back to bed not worrying about temperature. The remote alarm, set at 50F, did not go off. The pellets were done in the morning.

Cheeses smoked were medium Tillamook cheddar, Kroger sharp cheddar, pepperjack, munster, and cream cheese. I sliced the larger cheeses for maximum surface area.

Before:

After:

Ready for vacuum sealing:

 

[02ebz06]

Looks like it turned out great.
A tip for keeping temp down is to put a tray of ice in the smoker.

 

[dsk]

I tried an ice tray for the original attempt with the puck smoker, didn't help much at all against the puck heater. I didn't have enough ice made for a second tray.

I'm looking forward to sampling in a month or two.

 

[Winterrider]

Freeze a gallon milk jug or 2 and put in there.

 

[smokerjim]

Looks good

 

[gmc2003]

Freeze a gallon milk jug or 2 and put in there.

Same here, but I use frozen soda bottles.

Cheese looks good. We're about a month away from cheese season.

Point for sure
Chris

 

[JLeonard]

Looks mighty good!

Jim

 

[rw 12]

I tried cold smoking some cheese a couple of weekends ago in my Bradley. I don't have their cold smoker attachment, so the 125W puck heater was inside as usual. Even at 40F outside, it raised the temperature in the smoker to 100F, too hot for doing a cold smoke. So, at a thrift store I found a suitable box, and already I had a smoke tube plus a hose for having my Masterbuilt cold smoker remote from the MES. A bit of fabrication, and the Bradley is now configured for cold smoking as well.

So last weekend, with temperatures at 40F or below overnight, I loaded up the cheese again and and smoked it with about 6 inches of apple blend dust. I checked again in the middle of the night and decided I wanted to see more color so I loaded up maybe 4 inches of pellets as I had no more dust. The temperature in the smoker ran 4-5 degrees above ambient with the dust, and it was about 36F out when I put the pellets in so I just went back to bed not worrying about temperature. The remote alarm, set at 50F, did not go off. The pellets were done in the morning.

Cheeses smoked were medium Tillamook cheddar, Kroger sharp cheddar, pepperjack, munster, and cream cheese. I sliced the larger cheeses for maximum surface area.

Before:

View attachment 688114

After:

View attachment 688115

Ready for vacuum sealing:

View attachment 688116

I just use a smoke tube in my pit boss i have three of the large plastic blue things you freeze to put in a cooler . I use those

 

[BigW.]

Nice job on the cheese and the cold smoke hack. Pellets and dust do not generate much heat as you discovered. The Bradley pucks need to get very toasty to burn.