Smoked Cheese

[ice fishin' nut]

Salmon Smoker,,,,,
I am new to the group, and have been going through alot of the old posts, and have seen you mention "smoked cheese" a couple of times. I have been "smoking" for about 15 years now, and have never found a recipie or instructions for smoked cheese! Ive smoked eggs, noodles, every kind of fish and meat you can imagine-(ever have smoked gator or rattlesnake????) but never cheese...... could you please help?????

[Salmonsmoker]

ice fishin' nut,

Smoked cheese....an excellent way to add smoked flavor to many dishes that use cheese....and excellent party snack. I recently took a plate of smoked cheese chunks (about 2 lbs) to work and put it out for the office staff. Within minutes, the plate was empty - they left the crackers and just ate the cheese. I gave a friend at work a 1lb chunk for her to take home for her husband. She sat there and ate the whole thing.

Good homemade smoked cheese has nothing in common with the store-bought stuff....that stuff is usually just cheese with liquid smoke sprayed on it. If you never know the difference - it is probably OK. If you know what smoked cheese tastes like, that stuff is BAD. Home-made smoked cheese is not brown like that stuff, it is slightly tan.

OK. With all of that - how to make smoked cheese.

Over the past several years, I have used a variety of smokers to make smoked cheese. There is one very basic lesson here. Cheese melts at a low temperature. The window between having a high enough temperature to make a good supply of smoke and a low enough temperature to not melt the cheese - is about 10 degrees. It requires constant monitoring.

In one of my early experiments with cheese, I was distracted for about 1/2 hour by a phone call. When I got back to the cheese-smoking project, it was a melted puddle in the bottom of the smoker.

You will have to experiment with temps. Back when I was using a small electric smoker, I had to keep the temp below 110. Now I have a large Brinkman horizontal smoker with a separate smoke-generator. For whatever reason, this smoker can get up to 115 before it melts the cheese.

First, I go to a Cheese Outlet. I buy a lug of cheese - generally about 17 to 20 lbs (it is the large package that the retail store buys to cut off 1 to 2 lb wheels.)

I have found Colby to be excellent. Generally, the lug-price for this cheese is around $1.50 per lb at a cheese store. In Meijers, in the Deli, they sell the wheels (cut off a lug) for $4.40 per lb.

After I get the lug home, I let it warm a bit so it will slice easier, then, using a large butcher knife, cut it into 1.5 to 2 in. wheels.

Then, I put them back in the frige overnight. (The cool internal temp allows me to use a slightly higher temp in my smoker for the first hour or so - thus more smoke for a while.)

Then, when I am ready to fire up the smoker, I do not preheat it. I start the smoke generator, then start loading the cheese. By the time the racks are loaded, the generator is producing lots of smoke.

From there on, it is just a matter of constant monitoring. Every quarter hour I turn it and rotated it. As you have probably experienced, the temp in a smoker is never a constant nor is the smoke evenly distributed. I turn the cheese so that both sides get well smoked. I rotate the cheese so that no one peice will be in the "hot spot" in the smoker for more than a half hour.

Generally, since the internal temperature of the cheese will reach a point near melting after about two hours, I use a strong smoke - hickory bark from the Shagbark Hickory tree, or Oak, or a mixture of the two. (When smoking foods over a long time milder flavors can be used.)

Recently I had my wife pick up a heavy-duty (made out of 3/4 in dowls) clothes-drying rack for me (from the Amish in Shipshewana, Ind.) I took that rack and rubbed it down with mineral oil (the same oil that I use on my wooden cutting block) to seal the pores. Then, using some aluminum conduit, I made a metal frame just slightly larger than the rack. This is large and the cover is a canvas tarp. By putting the cheese on the top - several feet away from the smoke source, I can leave it in there longer. Also, as the weather gets cooler, the cheese can be in the smoker longer.

My best advice is experiment. (Baby Swiss is also an excellent smoked cheese, but more expensive.) Plan on melting some cheese along the way - but mostly, plan on enjoying some excellent smoked treats after you have finished the project.

Let me know how it works out.

Enjoy

Salmonsmoker.

[ice fishin' nut]

Thank You, I will be tring it soon!!!!! Sounds good!!!! Mom showed up yesterday with 4 bags of Pollack? from Meijers, and that is in the brine ready to go into the smoker tonight. Isnt it amazing how many friends you make when you have a good smoked product????? About 2 years ago the wife and I went to Frankenmuth for the weekend, I was excited, thought that I could goto some of the meat shops and get some good old world smoked meats and fish. Boy, was I wrong!!!! I figured that since my grandfather was from Germany, and he taught me how to smoke, that the markets would use the same techniques..... WRONG!!!! I was never so dissapointed!!!! Fed the jerky and smoked salmon to the dog, I would'nt eat it!!!! Too bad someone can't open a shop and sell smoked foods the way they are supposed to be!!!!!

Thanks Again!

[Salmonsmoker]

ice fishin' nut,

Maybe it is a good thing that they don't. That way, we know we can make stuff at home that is mega-times better than the stuff from the store. Besides, if you ever did try to market real home-smoked products, the price you would have to charge to recover your time and material, would prevent most people from buying.

Last year, I had a lot of people asking me to make Jerky for them. I looked into the licensing (sp?) involved to legally do that -It is not a pretty picture - requires a USDA permit with an inspector on site (at my expense) to insure that I am using "sanitary" procedures when making the jerky.

I found that it is almost impossible to make smoked foods for sale - much better to make them and give them away - and then accept an appropriate donation. That way you stay legal.

Salmonsmoker