I smoked some colby, colby jack, jack, and mozarella cheese today. The temps were right around 40° and I used my homemade csg with apple chips.
They didn't seem to be taking on smoke so after approximately 4hrs I turned on the heat to 60°. I was thinking that they needed some heat to take on the smoke.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v39/budman/BBQ/IMG_2149.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v39/budman/BBQ/IMG_2150.jpg)
They don't show the color of the "normal" smoked cheese but they definitely took on the smoke so I'm thinking a lot of the color must be from the heat.
I will vacuum seal them in a little bit and leave them alone for a few weeks.
Nice. That's alot of cheese.
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Let me know how the 4 hours of smoke turned out, I usually only go 2 hours with apple.
Now the wait, about a month from now that cheese will be killer...
MMMMMM
CHA CHA CHA CHEEEESE
I have smoked many hundreds of pounds of cheese over the years. It seems to me that cheese does take on more color with heat. I run mine between 85-90 F when doing cheese, with my homemade PID I have no trouble controlling the temps there. Now that temp may need lowered if doing something like cream cheese or Velvetta or any very soft cheese. But I have never melted any cheese in any of my smokers. Got a little close a couple times though. :o
I also do not use the smoke generator to do cheese, I use either my homemade smoke daddy clone or my cold smoke box with a hot plate and wood chips. Both work very well for cheese. :)
Thank you everyone, I plan on leaving it for a few weeks then if it seems like it needs more then I'll do it again but I think it took on enough smoke.
pensrock, I used a homemade smoke daddy type smoke generator that I thought I had dialed in but I had a heck of a time keeping it lit.
I'm going back to the drawing board with it. >:(