# Smoking cheese



## Leo

Hi,
I'm going to build a smoker hopefully this weekend or next, anyway I wanted to cold smoke my cheeses and I read in Home Cheese Making that the temp needs to be around 60*F max to smoke cheese. 

It's in the upper 90s afternoon/80s nights, right now, so do I have to wait till winter or early spring to smoke cheese? 

What temp do you find is good to smoke semi-hard/hard cheeses?
Thanks,
Megan


----------



## Guest

We are in Kansas and smoke cheese in the fall when it is cooler. If the cheese gets too warm it will excrete oil and the finished product will not be as nice as true cold smoked cheese.

Christy


----------



## Leo

Yeah, I definitely don't want an oily residue on the cheese. I guess i'll wait till winter, hopefully it'll get cold sooner than this year, and last longer! 
Thanks,
Megan


----------



## Sondra

So we need to have Vicki post how she smokes cheese again on here.


----------



## buckrun

Yes Please~ 

The old timers here had 'smokehouses' and they hung the cheese down low where it was cool and the other things higher like bacon and hams. How can you get smoke that is cool? Seems an oxymoron and I read that premium is 40 degrees.
This will be a good subject to collect info on. 
Thanks
Lee


----------



## Leo

I did a search on artisan cheesemakers and someone got a cool smoke by running the smoke through a cooler, through a tube than to the trashcan where the cheese was hanging, another person used a hot plate with cold water to keep the smoke cool.

I was planning on using the wood from the land my DH cleared for smoking so I was going the more fire method. As they are huge trees. Anyway, I also saw a thing on Alton Brown how he made his own liquid smoke a while back, I'll have to find it but here's the link to the episode on smokers: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_ea/episode/0,,FOOD_9956_22726,00.html
Megan


----------



## Sondra

OK this is from quite a while ago but was what Vicki said abt smoking her cheese



> It was very high tech Husband was smoking/cooking a brisket, and of course it would have melted the cheese, so I put a wiremesh basket I have (keep my eggs on the counter in it) and put it on top of the smoke stack, put the cheese on it and covered it with a wet cloth. I kept turning it over. He was cooking with hickory, so it was pretty strong smelling and brown when we were done. About 4 hours. But it is wonderful. The smoking only went into the cheese (a 6 inch wheel about 4 inches thick) into the natural crust. I did not wax this last batch. Next time I am going to recut the wheel down into the fresh cheese, and then smoke it, letting the smoke form the crust, since we ate it so quickly Sunday when husband was barbqueing I did the same thing with slices of cheese, we ate it on our hamburgers, it was wonderful!


----------



## Leo

Cool! Thanks for posting that! I can't wait to try it out!
Megan


----------



## Sondra

Also you should know Vicki's first try at smoking was with store bought cheese I think


----------



## spindleandwheel

Hi everyone,
I'm new, my very first post!

I cold smoked some hams this year, and I have a pretty easy method. You might have to modify it for cheese, I don't know if it is cold enough for cheese.

But here is a method you can try to make a cold type smoker that is pretty cheap and easily modified....

Buy a stainless steel bowl, or cast iron, it MUST not be aluminum or other kind of metal, stainless steel /cast iron only. Drill or use a dremel or grinder to make some holes or slits in the bottom and sides of the bowl. Be sure that the bowl will easily hold charcoal briquettes.

Put your briquettes in the bowl and light as normal. Add your green wood for smoke, I only used 3 briquettes, and on a cold day, I think this would work for cheese too.... Put the bowl in the bottom of one side of your normal grill, and your cheese on the other side. Our grill is oblong gas type... 

That tiny little fire will put off quite a lot of smoke, but not so much heat. On a really cold day it should be perfect, and very cheap/easy to do.

The other thing you can do, put a bigger bowl/fire under one side of your grill, and make some sort of hood to direct the smoke (that goes up) into the hole in the bottom of the gas grills. This can be aluminum foil. It is my understanding you don't want the firebox aluminum, because it can put off toxic fumes onto your food when exposed to open flame...

Around here, you can buy old grills at yard sales and stuff for free hee hee. I love free. You can even install a therometer in the side... But I think this could be a really good way to build an easy to use cold smoker. You could do it in so many ways...


----------



## buckrun

Thanks for that interesting suggestion! 
Glad to have that idea to play with.

And welcome to the forum- I am headed for your website because it sounds like FIBER!
Lee


----------



## spindleandwheel

The ham turned out so good, I will probably never ever buy another one lol. So why not cheese too? It should work and is easy to come by for very little. It's hard to try something when you have to spend a bunch.

It is fiber....lots of fiber lol. and sheep and stuff.


----------



## Leo

Welcome! The smoked ham sounds really good too. I want to try to smoke some bacon and fish, with the ham did you put any type of honey/syrup glaze too or did you brine it and smoke it?
Megan


----------



## spindleandwheel

The first ham I bought a cure mix from www.sausagemakers.com

That had a sugar flavoring in it and it was really good.

The second one I brined in the mortans brown sugar cure you can get in the store and it worked and tasted good too. I don't recall how much salt/mix I used though, about 2 or 3 cups per 25 pounds. Then i used 1 tea of the seasoning which is actually the cure part  I think I would use 1 1/2 teaspoons next time, or even two. The insides of the ham were cured but still gray. I also may have just needed to inject some cure into the center as they were on the large side.

I will say this, I will never ever ever buy a ham again! It was that good! You can just use a pork roast or something like that. Mix some brine and soak for 5 days or so. For small hams maybe only 3 days. You'll have to try it out and see how it comes out so you can get it to your taste.

Let me know how it turns out if you try it. Ours was excellant, in fact we ate most of it already (two pigs worth) something like 60 pounds of ham! Yeah, it was that good lol. Butchering was only a few months ago lol.


----------

