new interest in smoked cheese

[phinfan]

I have been reading some of the posts about smoking cheese. I use a traeger for my smoking. I was wondering what ya'll thought about channeling the smoke from the stack of my smoker to a chamber that contains the cheese, via some kind of duct (dryer vent duct), instead of the soldering iron idea.

 

[mulepackin]

Don't see why it wouldn't work. The smoking area only needs to be around 80 or so.

 

[phinfan]

I'm not sure that the heat would be transfered unless I kept the container that housed the chees pretty close. Do you need a certain amount of heat? I know you mentioned 80 degrees. What if I did'nt achieve that?

 

[xjcamaro]

As far as temps go, the lower the better, a general rule of thumb is keep it under 90*. Anything higher, and sometimes a little under 90*, depending on the cheese, your flirting with melting it.

 

[walle]

Phin,
You'll be fine. My first cheese smoke was at around 55-60*, second one was 45 - 50*. I think the most important thing with cold smoking is FLOW. Keep it runing good to avoid "stale" smoke and you'll be fine. Kind of did that when I cold smoked some almonds... yeah I've learned since they are a hell of a lot better roasted... but had my damper closed and was using my smoke generator. They had a bit of a whang to them.

Tracey

 

[etcher1]

I totally agree especially on the smoke generator.

 

[phinfan]

Thanks for the input. I guess I'll give it a go next chance I get. I'll post the results here.

 

[meateater]

Just keep the cheese chamber as cool as possible, better under 60* smoke for 2 hours with apple and vacuum pack. The hardest part is waiting for about 2 weeks to taste the results. I just opened a pack that I did a month ago, so far so awesome.

 

[grampyskids]

I too love smoked cheese. 2 weeks ago I smoked 2 pounds of medium cheddar as a test run. The hardest part was to wait 2 weeks for it to bloom. Forget using your smoker as the source for the smoke. I took a Bushes' Smoking Beans and cut the top of most of the way so it has a flap. Then used a church key on the bottom and made one hole just large enough to fit a cheapo Walmart soldering iron and put 3 more small holes for oxygen for combustion, Fill the can with chips and you get 45 minutes of smoking. It is killer and easy. My 2# lasted 4 days. Need to make a Costco run to smoke at least 10# of cheese.

 

[critterhunter]

I think your ductwork idea would work.I just use a couple lit briquettes and some chips in a smoke hollow #6 works great.You could probably do that with a coffee can in your traeger.Hope this helps.

 

[mudduck]

grampyskids
you need to tell what a church key is i know what it is but
there are a lot of young people on here wondering what the hail is
a church key lol

 

[timtimmay]

I've seen quite a few threads of guys that took the exaust and ran threw a 2nd 'cold chamber' with good results. Pretty much any way you can achieve TBS and temps low enough to not melt the cheese you are good.

I have what will probably be my last winter smoke chillin out and I'll open it today I think.

For me, I though about doing the exaust thing, but it looked easier to just build a little smoke generator and smoke cheese in the main chamber.

 

[Bearcarver]

LOL---Good point. It never even dawned on me that the youngsters might not know what a "church key" is.

BC