Yesterday I was attempting to cold smoke some mozzarella and swiss chees in my smokette with the baffle in and the aluminum pan full of ice cubes directly on it. I heated the oven at 200F until I saw some smoke, then loaded the cheese on top rack. I was using about an ounce of Cookshack Apple wood. I turned the temp down to 180f for about ten minutes and then was about to turn it down to 150F for another 10 minutes when, I heard a little belch from the oven as I was going out to reduce the temp - it was a herumhp! and a cloud smoke expelled forcibly from the door seams and the top and bottom vents in a forcible fssst! I suspect that an accumulation of volatile gases from the chip of wood ignited. Luckily, the oven door is bolted down with some hefty hardware...?!?
This seemed like too short and strong an event to be a flare up of fat and or drippings, especially since I had just cleaned all the drippings off of the smoke box before starting the cheese. Has anyone seen this before? The rest of the smoking cycle was sompetely uneventful.
Also, I never got anywhere near melting the cheeze- the ice was still in there after about an hour, with only a slight beading of fat beads on the surface, but the taste was too strong. Does any one have a recommendation on how much of what wood to use for how long at what temp?
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