CeramicChef Posted December 3, 2014 Report Share Posted December 3, 2014 So today is a nice cool day here in OKC and after Jerri smoked cheese right after Thanksgiving and my ne'er do well Brother gigged me to smoke some cheese for him, I decided to do some smoked Tillamok Medium Cheddar Cheese today in TheBeast. This is my first attempt at smoking cheese in the belly of TheBeast, so we're into unknown territory. So, we shall see what we shall see. Open up both manifold wide open to get plenty of airflow to make certain the A-Maz-N-Tube Smoker performs as designed. Here's a pic of the A-Maz-N-Tube 6" smoker resting on my lower grate in the beast. It's been lit and has been burning for 10 minutes. Blew out the fire as per instructions and it's now smoking away. We're using hickory pellets today for our smoke component. Here is the Tillamok Cheddar cut into slabs for better smoke adsorption. I used a veggie tray since the holes will allow for good smoke contact on all sides of the cheddar slabs. You probably can't tell from the picture, but I have the upper cooking grate to get the cheese high in the dome of TheBeast. The upper cooking grate is sitting on the main grate which is above the lower grate. So we have the lower grate holding the Tube Smoker, the main grate, and the upper cooking grate holding the cheese for smoking. Here's a picture of the top vent. I've opened this more for this smoke than it's ever been open for a cook, even high temp pizza cooks. The reason for this is that Tube Smokers are notorious for not staying lit in kamado cookers. This isn't going to happen to me today! TheBeast's top vent is 3 full turns open at this point! If you look right under the top vent in the lower right hand quadrant you can see the gasket. Here is the cheese after 2 hours on smoke. The cheese doesn't look as if it has adsorbed much smoke, but believe me it has! You should have been in the kitchen 5 minutes after I brought it in .... smelled like a BBQ joint! Go figure! After a trip to the Food Saver, here's what you get ... Note that Pete The Pink Salt Pig approves! Also note that I've put the date I smoked this cheese on the bag. It'll be ready for consumption in 3 weeks, just in time for Xmas hors d'oeuvres! The reason the bag is so dadgummed crinkled is because I got distracted by Skippy, the Sous Chef cat! I"ll let y'all know in 3 weeks how this turns out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilburpan Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 Dumb question: why wait three weeks? How would the cheese taste if you ate it right away? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted December 4, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 Dumb question: why wait three weeks? How would the cheese taste if you ate it right away? Wilbur, not a dumb question at all. Three weeks seems to me to be the optimal time to let cheese cure after smoking. If we ate the cheese right after smoking, it really wouldn't taste as "smokie" as it will in 3 weeks. Right now, all the smoke is on the surface of the cheese. Letting the cheese cure helps the smoke to infuse deeper into the cheese. I wish I could rush the process along. Anyone have a way to cut down on the curing time for smoked cheese? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilburpan Posted December 4, 2014 Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 Makes sense, if penetration of the smoke flavor is what you need. Could this be a way of speeding things up? 1. Set up your grill with your favorite smoking setup, and put the cheese in some sort of open rigid container, like a small Pyrex baking dish, or ramekins. 2. Start the smoking process, and run your grill at a temperature high enough to slightly soften or melt the cheese, but low enough so that it doesn’t brown or cook. Since the cheese is more liquid, the smoke flavor should penetrate more easily. The rigid container is there to corral the melting cheese, and you can recut the cheese into blocks afterwards when things cool down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted December 4, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2014 Dadgum, Wilbur! You just might be onto something! I gotta think about this one .... How do I reincorporate the oils that are sure to separate out if the cheese melts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilburpan Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Either keep the temperature low enough so that doesn't happen, or stir up the cheese when you pull it before it cools to reincorporate it. I should say that I think the second option has a high likelihood of failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeramicChef Posted December 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Either keep the temperature low enough so that doesn't happen, or stir up the cheese when you pull it before it cools to reincorporate it. I should say that I think the second option has a high likelihood of failure. Well Wilbur, you know me. As an engineer, i'll try just about anything once just to see what happens! Most engineers are empiricists deep down. MY favorite questions always start "I wonder what happens if I ..." Got me into more trouble ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted December 5, 2014 Report Share Posted December 5, 2014 Those silly scientists (physicists/chemists) think too damned much and dither around; us engineers just try stuff, even if it doesn't work perfectly. One of my favorite sayings is "Perfection is the enemy of 'good enough!'" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
