Well, we repositioned the Bradley smoker to waist level (my back was beginning to suffer stooping over) and smoked several cheeses. Using pecan, we smoked for 2 hours with the temperature not rising above 95F. I did not connect the power wire to the smoker to prevent any current from reaching the main heating element. I learned my lesson from the first cheese smoke and cut these into approximately 2.5-inch thick chunks to get good smoke penetration, but not too much. I'm still a cheese novice, but we sure do like the smoky flavor that you can't get from store bought cheese.
Ice in the bottom pan proved very helpful to keep the temperature from rising too far. One of these days I'll purchase some dryer vent and build an isolation box to truly deliver cold smoke.
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Here's the cheese list:
- Top rack: muenster on the left and goat cheese in the foil
- Middle rack: pepper jack on the left and Gouda on the right
- Bottom rack: more Gouda (left) and muenster (right)
We put the Bradley on the side counter of the grill - it fit perfectly. It is so much easier to work with the smoker when it is at counter height - no more hands-and-knees!
Done smoking: a friend gave me a huge muenster log to smoke and I cut it into 2.5-inch thick pieces - the ends are on the left. A couple of goat cheese logs are on the right.
The pepper jack is on the left and Gouda on the right.
We spread a bit of smoked goat cheese on bread my wife baked this morning - it was absolutely delicious.
Now we've lots of sacks of cheese vacuum sealed in the back of the fridge aging nicely.
