Funny Story

[threemuch]

New guy here.  Just built a UDS and made a pellet smoke generator, and when it was 48 degrees outside, I fired it up, just the pellet smoke generator in the drum.  Beautiful blue smoke.  What a great idea a pellet smoke generator is.  After 3 hours, the internal temp was 70.  So I figured, I should throw some cheese in.

I went to the fridge.  No brick cheese, just a big bag of shredded mozzerella.  So I put that in on a cookie sheet.  I left it in for 2 hours.

It came out with a nice light tan tint.  It smelled very smokey.  Then I put some in my mouth.  Holy cow.  That stuff was inedible.  Spit it out inedible.  It tasted like road tar.  Maybe that's an exaggeration, but I wouldn't do it again.  It was bad.

So then I decide to look some stuff up on smoking cheese (this is classic behavior for me, read the instructions after 1 or more attempts to just "figure it out") and discover that when smoking chunks, people wait 1-2 weeks before eating the cheese to let it mellow and balance and outgas.

So I want to do some bricks of cheese this weekend.  It will be cool and I like smoked cheese.  How do you store the smoked cheese to age?  Open in the fridge?  My wife won't like that.  Can I cover i in tupperware or vacuum pack it?  What are my options?

Thanks in advance for helping out a newbie.

 

[timberjet]

Overnight on the counter in open ziplocks, then wipe them off with a paper towel. Bag them, vac. seal is better or wax. The longer the mellowing period the better. Yum.

 

[threemuch]

Thanks!  I have a bad mother trucker of a chamber vac packer, so that's what I will do after leaving them out overnight.

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Yeah for the shredded cheese 30-45 minutes would have been enough smoke! Then rest a day or two.

For brick cheeses I like to quarter the load lengthwise giving me (4) approx 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 8" pieces. I smoke these for 2-3 hours. I let them rest 2-3 days loosely covered in the fridge. Then I wax them. Used to vac pac but now I wax all my cheese. Then I leave alone for at least 4 weeks. I have smoked cheese that's over a year old in my fridge right now.