First time smoking cheese

[curious aardvark]

Was ambling around costco yesterday - £3 off a side of salmon - bought three - and they had some samples of a rather pleasant cheese.

turns out to be a strong double gloucester.
double gloucester is a full fat hard cheese. sort of like a creamy cheddar, but subtler flavour. It's good cheese.

This stuff was excellent. bought a 1.3 kg block (2.8 pounds).
Now i've got four shelves in the smoker, the salmon wil occupy three, so thought i'd slice the cheese into decent chunks, cold smoke it, vac pac and freeze.

ps. there will be qview on the whole cold smoked salmon process. that'll be in the smoker for 5 hours. But would that be too long for the cheese ?
I've seen times ranging from 30 minutes to several hours to 15 mins an hour for a whole day !
given that these will be aprrox 6 oz blocks - what do you reckon for smoking time ?
forget any temp issues. modded bradleys smoke real COLD. :-)
just need some idea on time.

 

[richtee]

A couple hours per block should be good. And don't forget to put the cheese on TOP...heh.

Also, don't judge the stuff right out of the smoker. A day or so later it will be much better.

 

[richoso1]

What he said.

 

[shorts]

Be very careful...very easy to make fondue in the bottom over your smoker...very hard to clean back up!!! I cold smoke mine usually about 4 hours...I also put a coating on it of season salt, onion powder and garlic powder...they fight over the outer edge so I cut mine into 1" slabs...

Oh and what Richtee said...seems like it gets better as it sits!

GL CA!

 

[curious aardvark]

cheers guys - fondue - not a problem. There is no heat source in the smoker when I'm cold smoking.
The bradley smoke generator sits in a cardboard box with a tumble dryer tube from the top of the box to the the bradley (i'll q-view the thing tomorrow). No heat on in the bradley.
Hmm, not sure about the seasoning the cheese.
bear in mind this isn't american cheese - this stuff tastes great as it is ;-)
I think I'll stick to just the smoking. I'll take a piece out each hour and see which one tastes best after a day in the fridge.
It's a plan :-)
Thanks guys.

 

[walking dude]

i cold smoke (under 90 degrees) hard/yellow cheeses two hours, white (softer) cheeses one hour. the cheeses (pepperjack, monteray jack, mozz, swiss) takes on smoke easier. two hours I/We have found is abit too strong. But the yellow/harder cheeses can take 2 easy.

And what they said before. the longer the cheese sits, the stronger the smoke flavor it attains...........

 

[curious aardvark]

well this stuff is a medium hard cheese. I'm a cheese eater and while I've been told that there are some small dairies making decent cheese in the states now - I've never found any when over there. So not sure what you'd compare a mature double gloucester with ( and this is a great double gloucester).

I'll cut the chucnk into 4 or 5 pieces and take one out each hour and seal it in a bag and label it.
Then I'll leave it in the fridge for a day or two and we can have a blind tasting :-)

 

[walking dude]

curious, then you haven't ever had Maytag Blue Cheese........its known world wide...........its a goodun

 

[curious aardvark]

never even heard of it - worldwide maybe - but not in england :-)
like I said, I don't doubt there are some good american cheeses - just never had one.

 

[walking dude]

sorry bout your luck curious........



http://www.maytagdairyfarms.com/aspx/welcome.aspx

 

[curious aardvark]

looks good. Okay I'll have a shufty and see if there's any available round here :-)

 

[curious aardvark]

nope not loooking good, no one seem to sell it over here :-(
I'm off to bother the smoker :-)
Those last few degrees you know ?
lol

 

[richtee]

One of the best I have had. The Danish and the Stilton might have a bit of edge on it. But you's do no wrong subbing one for the other for sure.

 

[curious aardvark]

like the white crumbly look of the maytag, and I'm asucker for anything that's matured in a cave. Just can't find anyone selling it. And I do look in delis and I do buy cheese at food shows and maytag's never crossed my palate.
I suspect that maytag just isn't exported. :-(

I'll keep looking.

 

[walking dude]

kind of hard to be a world class cheese, if its not exported.....

 

[curious aardvark]

no it's not dude.
You have cheese competitions in the us ?
Right some of those judges are international.
World class - is not the same as widely available :-)
Never has been, probably never will be.

It looks like maytag is mainly sold by mail order in the us anyway. So that would explain my never seeing it in a shop.

 

[williamzanzinger]

You guys know I love talking about my Dad. He told me a stroy once when he was 11 or so in NYC he used to go by this italian deli where the guy would smoke mozzerella and provolone. The guy would hire him to babysit the cheese which was suspended about 6 feet over a small smoldering smoke. His job was to keep the cheese moving so it wouldnt get too hot, just push it back and forth for a few hours. At the end of the job the guy would give hime a couple of pounds of cheese and a loaf of italian bread. Right up there with his story about stealing sugar cane off the back of the trucks in P.R. Dad loved to eat.(still does)

 

[walking dude]

hmmm curious............

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maytag_blue_cheese

and suprise suprise.......guess where it was held at?

London

http://www.anniehallinc.com/pages/awards.html

 

[curious aardvark]

lol that would explain it - london is a totally different country to the rest of england.
It's a dirty, smelly, over crowded with rude people, total craphole of a place. Weird that they don't tell you that in the tourist brochures eh ;-)
bears about about as much resemblence to the rest of the country as most capital cities do - ie: NONE !
Yep there might be delis in london you can buy it from. But they're not advertising the fact on the tinternet.

I'll be buggered if I'm going to london to look for cheese :-) Can't stand the place.

However - just for walking dude - I'll ask someone I know who lives in london and probably knows some really good cheese shops.

 

[curious aardvark]

Anyways - first cheese smoke is now done. Cheese was tasted, results are in.

I loaded four slabs of chees into the smoker while I was smoking the salmon.
Took one piece out every hour and sealed it in a labelled bag.
Left for a couple of days.

For my money the 3 hour cheese was bang on the money. The four hour cheese was a bit too strong - but will be great for cooking with.
The 1 & 2 hour, while tasting a bit smoky were a little too subtle for me. Though the 2 hour might well be sufficient for most people.

So In future I'll probably smoke cheese for 3 hours :-)