Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation smokey cheese

I've always liked smoked cheddar cheese and have smoked it once in a while. Lately I've decided to try and produce some good stuff. Here is what I have found so far. The best batch was colded smoked about 16 hrs, wrapped in plastic wrap and aged in the fridge. It seems to be getting better the longer it is aged. Any thoughts? BCR and the gormet in the Northwest(Bullwnkl)?pak

pak
What flavor wood did you vaporize? Big cheese chunks, or little? Your other smoked products are so incredible, I just need to know where you went with it.

My chese smoking has been limited to jack and cheddar with the jack getting the nod last time I smoked some...
art

I took a 5lb block of Tillimook(sp) and cut into 6 lenght wise pieces. I thought I could maximize the exposed area per serving slice this way. I used alder for this batch. I have yet, to my satisfaction, figured a way to use the cherry sawdust you gave me. Saw dust tends to smother a fire. Catch me when you are in town and I'll give you some. Are the birds up north yet? We shopuld be seeing baby ducks soon.pak

pak
Saw two lonely, miserable specs huddled in a snowdrift yesterday; they got here a tad early. We have been getting some terrible spring weather and the ground blizzards last night were special. It has been ranging down below zero regularly, too.

There have been a few snow buntings around, but nothing else yet. I am out of here on wednesday and hope, for the sake of the birds, that they do not show in numbers before I leave. Last spring was very late and the nesting success was terrible as a result.

I got a couple big bags of mesquite shipped in with my hickory flooring so I can let you try some of that... perfect size pieces for your operation, I think. Hard to match that mesquite for smoke... unless you are burning down the Alamo or some other part of TX! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />art

pak I haven't done a lot of cheese in the smoker. Misquite gives cheddar too "sweet" a taste for me. Pecan works pretty good. Doing cheese is trickey for me. Too warm and you wind up with a smokey chip dip and too cold all the smoke flavor is on the outside and its still just cheese in the middle. Glad yours turned out well.

BCR

The best way to use saw dust is to put it into an aluminum pie pan and set the pan on your coals.

Sitka - you blasphemer. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> What are you trying to do importing mesquite. Isn't there a customs law to prevent that?

Pac, I have not tried this but I in envision that it would work well. Of course there is no better wood for smoking than red alder, no bark.

How about wrapping a block of cheese in cheese cloth soaked in a sweet red wine for a day or so then let drip dry just a little while, say long enough to stop major dripping then smoke for an extended time. Cold smoking would be the way. When finished smoking wrap tightly in plastic film or dip in wax and age for a few months. Since I do not have a cold smoker I will try this on the top shelf of my Big Chief. A pound block to begin with.

Bullwnkl.

pds
I will grant TX has produced a few marvels... mesquite is arguably the best thing to come out of TX... second best would be ME! There, I said it! I must admit I was born in San Antonio! Shame is all I can say about this unhappy state of affairs, but I AM TX BORN... at my therapy sessions they said it was going to be very hard to say that... and it was... but I am over it now!

Will the rest of you forgive me my little indiscretion? I am also a mongrel of untold pedigree, just fighting to salvage my rep after the TX tragedy is unveiled <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> I would cry, except it is unmanly and I have to show manliness, in spite of a TX origin!

I am a wood critic of the worst kind. I think I taste the different species with nary a glitch in ID and find huge differences in taste. Mesquite is one of the best woods, in every respect. Cherry, cut with a mild wood like alder or apple is great.

Any wood overdone is bitter and must be avoided.
art the repentant Texan

I tryed that with a front loader Little Chief and it did'nt work.Was'nt any fun to clean up either. Course if you'v got a top loader you can set a couple 1x4s across the top and set the rack apparatus on them with the carton around it to contain the smoke.Works great for cheese,oysters,clams etc. I may get a Mini Chief just for cold smoking if they make a top loader. I like Pepper Jack smoked with .....alder,what else?
Jeff

Art I knowed there was something human about you buried under all the hoar frost and fish scales. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
Texas born and a Lone Star expatriate. My My! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Different woods do go better with different meats. Nothing better than misquite with goat. Misquite and pork don't do well together to my taste. Pork wants post oak. Hickory is the old standby of course but the mistake many make with it is using green hickory. Lord it is horrible when they do that.

Now you could do like an idiot neighbor of mine did. Gave him a shoaty pig and he bar-b- qued it using old cedar fence posts. Tasted like he had diped it in turpentine.

Then he cooked a pit load of chickens using the cut off ends of railroad ties for coals. Creosote and chicken don't go well toghther. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

BCR

Art: I imagine you found Texas to be a little confining? Wanted some real space to move around? Quite understandable. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />