Let's Talk BBQ
Cured Meats & Food Preservation => Cured meats & Food Preservation => COLD SMOKING! => Topic started by: terryk on September 05, 2013, 11:03:14 PM
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Well the old A-Maze-N-Tube Smoker did an excellent job cold smoking some medium cheddar. Two hours with some apple pellets in the Traeger along with some blocks of ice to keep things really cool. The hardest part is waiting the weeks they recommend before sampling :( Some Colby and more cheddar are on the agenda for this weekend. :)
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I was going to ask how you managed to keep the cheese from melting.
Hope it works out.
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I have used the ice cube trick when it was really too hot to cold smoke. It worked. I now try to wait until the weather gets much colder and then I go buy up a load of cheese and cold smoke it all at once. After I vacuum seal it comes the "waiting time". I make enough so that I almost always have cold smoked cheese available year round.
Be sure to try different fruit woods for cold smoking your cheeses.
Art
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I say wait at least a month. The first week or two the smoke on the cheese tastes like an ash tray IMHO. It needs time to be absorbed by the cheese. It will darken over time and take on a deeper color. I have had smoked cheese that was vac sealed well over a year old that tastes just fantastic.
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Looking forward to the results.
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I have used the ice cube trick when it was really too hot to cold smoke. It worked. I now try to wait until the weather gets much colder and then I go buy up a load of cheese and cold smoke it all at once. After I vacuum seal it comes the "waiting time". I make enough so that I almost always have cold smoked cheese available year round.
Be sure to try different fruit woods for cold smoking your cheeses.
Art
I do the same. Last batch I went with 3 hours of smoke and I wasn't thrilled with it.
This year, I'm going back to 2 hours of smoke. Apple is my choice of wood/pellets.
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Unless it is cold outside, I've not been able to get my Traeger to do cold smoke successfully - in my area I always seem to develop cheese-sicles, so I switched to the Bradley, which is famous for low temperature smoking. The problem With the Bradley in the height of summer is that it is still too hot, and the same cheese-sicle still develop.
NepaSmoker posted a technique for the Bradley in which he separated the smoke generator from the main tower - worked perfectly for me and decreased the tower temperature by 20F.
However, I have also tried the ice cube trick which unfortunately left condensation on my cheese - a solution is to freeze water in a sealed container before adding to the smoker. That way you have the benefits of adding cold without adding moisture.
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pz, The idea of freezing in a ziplock bag is really a neat tip. Dee
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Terry
When i had a Traeger i did cold cheese. Back then we only had the dust style amzns. What i did was to take the bolts that attatch the stack to the main body off, invert the stack (upside down) and put the bolts back in. Makes the smoke stay in the Traeger longer.
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Unless it is cold outside, I've not been able to get my Traeger to do cold smoke successfully - in my area I always seem to develop cheese-sicles, so I switched to the Bradley, which is famous for low temperature smoking. The problem With the Bradley in the height of summer is that it is still too hot, and the same cheese-sicle still develop.
NepaSmoker posted a technique for the Bradley in which he separated the smoke generator from the main tower - worked perfectly for me and decreased the tower temperature by 20F.
However, I have also tried the ice cube trick which unfortunately left condensation on my cheese - a solution is to freeze water in a sealed container before adding to the smoker. That way you have the benefits of adding cold without adding moisture.
I use plastic juice containers filled with water for the ice, not much condensation that way. I am also only using the Traeger for containing the smoke from the Tube Smoker, I don't fire up the Traeger at all and very little heat is produced by the Tube Smoker. Traeger does make a Cold Smoker that can be attached at the stack end but I still think it would be difficult to keep it cool enough for cheese.
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Well it was three years ago since I first smoked some cheese and it was so long ago all I can remember is that it was scrumptious. Just finished up another batch of Bandon Medium Cheddar, 7 1/2 lbs. worth. I like mine well smoked so it was smoked 4 hrs. w/ 1/2 Apple and 1/2 Hickory. Each 2 1/2 lb. block was cut into (4) pieces. Its now going to rest in the refrigerator for 3-4 weeks. I again used the 12" A-Maze-N-Tube Smoker in the Traeger Texas Pellet Grill. It was 68 degrees out so just to be safe I put a couple of quart bags of ice along side the smoke tube and the temp never got above 75 degrees inside, probably could have got by without the ice. The A-Maze-N--Tube Smoker produces very little heat while producing a good amount of smoke.