Smoking Cheeses

do you have a cookshack and if so, which model? we'll be glad to help.

Also, be sure to do a "search" on cheese and you'll find some information in the various forums.

Welcome to the forum!

Smokin et All,

When in Puerto Vallarta last year, we had some of the best smoked cheese we'd ever tasted.

They took a circle of Provolone, about the diameter and thickness of a hockey puck. They basted it with olive oil, and put a Roma tomato slice on top. Then they grilled it direct over Mesquite coals for about 5 minutes.

Ok, how do we do this in a CS? Read someone's suggestion here about turning the CS on and off several times. Not going to go to that much effort because I can do it direct on the grill.

However, would love to figure out how to smoke the Provolone in the CS.

Regards, Mike

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinOkie:
[qb]do you have a cookshack and if so, which model? we'll be glad to help.

Also, be sure to do a "search" on cheese and you'll find some information in the various forums.

Welcome to the forum![/qb]

Hi Smokin, we have a Brinkman Smoker. Thanks for the help !

Hey, just because you have a Brinkman, doesn't mean we won't help. but you'll get jealous of all the comments about the Cookshack.

The menthod of cooking cheese in a CS involves turning the unit on and off (something you can't do in a ECB -- also known on the internet by that name "El Cheapo Brinkman" but they mean it fondly) I started out on an ECB.

About the closest is a much better unit called the Weber Bullet.

Check out this link for their method of doing cheese and it should work in yours.

Virtual Weber Bullet -- Cheese

Hope it helps. Fresh smoked cheese is great.

Smokin' Okie

Thanks Smokin,

We knew nothing about smokers when we bought our Brinkman. I'm sure we will graduate to a Cookshack in the near future ! You are very kind for helping me anyway !

There are several ways to smoke cheese in a CS smoker. One is to cold smoke which is pretty much impossible to do on a smoker like a weber. However you can also hot smoke cheese in a CS, which can be done on just about any smoker.

To cold smoke in a CS you need a cold smoke kit and will have to turn the smoker on and off.

To hot smoke you simply put the cheese in the smoker set the temperature to 175 degrees and let it smoke for 20 to 40 minutes depending on the type cheese. The softer the cheese the shorter the cook time. This can be done in just about any smoker, the lower the temperature that you can smoke at the more smoke flavor you will get, as the cheese won't melt as quick.

Have fun...
Stuart

Stuart: Those are encouraging words about temps. I went to the Weber website that Smokin suggested. It says to smoke at 90* It says wait for a cold day or night. Just about put this ole boy out of the cheese smoking business, just as I was getting ready to follow the Mackshan initiative. It won't be cool here til 2002! My Brinkman hits 110* with no fire in it! Maybe I'll get a hard piece of cheddar and try it, anyway. I can make a lot of smoke. Lot's of smoke; short time. Might work, aye? I hate when cheddar drips into the bilges of my smoker. acarriii.

Wow! My wife may have given me the solution. Put a bag (or 2?) of crushed ice in the bottom of the smoker and let her rip. Maybe double wrap the ice, so there is no water leaking.
Cheese on the grill, ice under, smoke coming in from the offset unit.
I bet that would work. Sorry if this is too Brinkmanesque for the CS Nation, but you got to admit, it gives you a satifactory sense of...lunacy? Cook with ice!
However, Jamison and Jamison have a smoked oyster recipe that works just about like that. Oysters on the half-shell, resting on ice, stuffed in the smoker.
Fire and Ice. What's next? ACARRIII

quote:

To hot smoke you simply put the cheese in the smoker set the temperature to 175 degrees and let it smoke for 20 to 40 minutes depending on the type cheese

Thanks, Stuart.

Provolone, maybe 30 mins @ 175?
Have you smoked it hot, turned it off, and left the cheese in the CS? Also, how about even lower temps? Would the wood still smolder?

Regards, Mike

Stuart,
a little while back, terryatcookshack said that you had taught a DSR(?) session in which you had cold smoked cheddar and monterey. Could you please share your cheese, cold smoking guide lines with us? The promise of cold smoked cheese is what finally helped me convince my wife that I needed a M50 (as the cold smoke kit is not recommended for use in my smokette) LOL.
Thanks,
terry

Fire and ice night. Zero results. Zip. Nada. No taste imparted to the 1/2 lb block of cheddar nor the swiss after 45 minutes of good smoke from maple coals. (Done over a bed of ice! That was the cool part.) Held the temp to about 110*. Smoke was light but constant. No taste; no color. I think I would go for 1.5 hrs next, if the cheese don't revert to the clabber state. This make sense to anyone? And should I expect a color change on the outer milimeters?
How'd I get into this, anyhow? ACARRIII

Stuart and I are in the process of building a Cheese 101 (with Photos) if you can go ahead and ask questions and be patient while we work on the post.

Thanks!

I like to wrap blocks of cheese in about 3 - 4 layers of cheesecloth and smoke it as per Stuart's hot smoking instructions: 175 - 180 degrees F for about 20 - 40 minutes. Tie it up with string like a package. This helps the cheese keep its shape. Let the cheese cool to room temp before unwrapping. The texture will be different than the original cheese, and it's delish.

Donna J.

Acarriii, about your fire and ice night. Did you taste the ice-melt water?

"Now that's some high-quality H2O!" (The Waterboy)

Donna,
Thanks for refining Stuarts hot smoke
method.
SmokinOkie,
I'll be watching for cheese 101. The way my family is after me, smoked cheese will be a project done soon. If done before your cheese 101 is out I'll post the results.
terry

. Did you taste the ice-melt water?

Pete, whatever did you have in mind? I collected the drip water in a bucket. Looked like discharge from a coal mine. Not even my dogs, those pariahs out by the BBQ, would touch the stuff. (I've got plenty of dogs, even though Redneck In Training ate one.)
Maybe leachate of BBQ with Knob Creek bourbon? Tequila? That might work.
You got me thinking.
Not productively, perhaps, but thinking.
I'm going to re-do the cheese tonight. It'll be done when it's done...or so they say. ACARRIII

quote:

acarriii wrote:
Not even my dogs, those pariahs out by the BBQ, would touch the stuff. (I've got plenty of dogs, even though Redneck In Training ate one.)

Y'all still got more dawgs?? Send 'em down here. Last one was a good'un.

As a RNIT, how'm I doin'?

-Ron

RNIT said:

QUOTE] Y'all still got more dawgs?? [/QUOTE]

Tom, are you going to help this Redneck In his Training, or must I? RNIT, this is basic: There ain't no Dawgs in Gainesville. They stay in Georgia. Down here, they're dead meat; aka, Gator Bait. Way toooooo many Gators in Gainesville for Dawgs to survive.
I'll leave it there. Smokin Okie would Sooner we not talk football. And, besides, I've got to go find some cheese cloth, like Donna said. It'll be smoked cheese tonight, or it'll be fondue!!!!!ACARRIII

quote:

acarriii writ:
Smokin Okie would Sooner we not talk football.

Yeah, that's reasonable. And I can understand why.

But we can talk about Gator's cain't we. An' 'member, we gotta feed 'em right quick.

Then we can say that our Gators eat Sooner.

-Ron

As a grad of OU (maybe before you were born), I represent that remark.

Regards, Mike

Sorry I haven't gotten around to posting something on cheese. I'm trying to get my family ready for a little vacation to Branson and seems like I can't get the desk cleared off.

Any way, here's a quick outline of how I cold smoke cheese. I have tried several varities but my favorite is provolone.

First you need a cold smoke baffle for your CS smoker. I don't recommend using one in a Smokette however have a few customers that make it work.

Place the cold smoke baffle in place of the bottom grill. Place a pan of ice on top of the baffle. Load the woodbox with sawdust pellets. (I beleive that pellets work better for cold smoking because they burn quicker and product a lot of smoke). I personally like hickory, but have also done maple and cherry.

Cut the cheese into 6" cubes and place on grills. Turn the unit, doesn't matter what temperature. Leave the unit on for 15 to 20 minutes. As soon as you have a good stream of smoke coming out of the smoker turn it off. Leave the door closed and let the cheese sit in the smoker for 1 hour. At the end of the hour, turn the smoker back on for 15 minutes and repeat the process.

The best cheese that I have done I repeat the cycle 4 times. However after the third time I opened the door and let it stand open for about 15 minutes to let it cool down. The temperature around the cheese had reach about 110 degrees.

One word of caution. Do not leave the unit on for more than 20 minutes with the cold smoke baffle in place or you will damage your unit...

Have fun, and don't give Smokin' to much grief about them Sooners since my Jayhawks will probably kill them this year...

Stuart

Thanks to "Mackshan" for bringing up this cheese item. Stuart, looks like you have a formula pinned down for CS units. Mackshan and I are still with the other hardware. I smoked cheese last night, and it worked. More or less. Cheddar is delicious. Did my fire and ice routine on the Brinkman, held the "dome" temp to about 185* (Lord knows what the temp is elsewhere in that crazy machine). Wrapped the cheese in cheese cloth, as Donna said to do.(Cheese cloth left a texture to the cheese surface sort of like the back of a lizard!) Cheddar, Swiss and Gouda. Small 1/2 -1/4 lb chunks. I think your 6 in blocks might be a good idea to stick with. Smoked away about 2 hrs, over maple, until I got impatient and threw in a chunk of hickory. Cheese did not melt, but did get soft. Then into the fridge overnight
Cheddar is very good. The other two (Swiss and gouda) are smoked, but I don't think I like the taste. Hmmmmm. Maybe there is a trick to matching the right cheese with the right smoke. Cheddar does goooooooooood with smoke. That's what I learned this week! I'll watch for Cheese 101. ACARRIII

hahahahahahahahahahaha

Stuart, you so Funny!


hahahahahahahahahahaha

Smokin' Sooner
we'll discuss this on the golf course tomorrow -- you buy!

Acarriii,

Glad to hear that it worked on a bullet style smoker. We get calls from people asking question about bullet style smokers quite a bit and it's always nice to be able to help them.

One little note about different woods for different cheeses. I was talking to a guy in New York one time that wanted to get into business smoking cheese and he claimed that all your big guys that smoke cheese use cardboard for the smoke. It sounded really bad, so I have never tried it. But I found it interesting...

CARDBOARD??!!!
Ah yes . . . the smell of (various, mostly soft, woods chopped to a fine consistency)
with just the added piquant accent of (any variety of chemicals used in the manufacture of the board. Man has this joker never driven past a paper plant, for God's sake? )
and the final addition of just a hint of (whatever glue, formaldehyde or just hide based concoction selected in the manufacturing process.)
MMMMMMM! I can hardly wait! I have ordered a 100 pound wheel of the best cheddar from Maytag Farms and am busily scavenging cardboard from all the dumpsters in my neighborhood . . . NOT!

Cog

I agree 100%, will never catch me using it. However, this guy was serious...

Stuart

Did he enjoy adult beverages as well?...If so ,I have some swampland west of I-95 in south FL I'd like to talk to him about.