I smoked two racks worth of cheese the other night. I smoked the cheese for 2.5 hrs with apple in my new 6 rack digital. This is the forth time smoking and the smoke house is well seasoned. The temp stayed under 60 deg the whole time. The pucks were advancing every 20 min with no problems and I had the water bowl 3/4 full. I pulled the cheese out and brought the racks in the house. When I brought them in my nose said this smells bad. My wife said whats that smell. To me it smells kinda like acid or maybe creosote surely not the smell I was expecting. It sat overnight in the fridge and I tasted some of the swiss cheese and it did not have a nice flavor. Reminds me of an ash tray. All the blocks of cheese are shrink wrapped and in the fridge for a while. Did I get a bad batch of apple pucks or what did I do wrong??????? Help please!(http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s582/Chad0723/IMG_20131104_195054_993_zpsa25608b6.jpg)(http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s582/Chad0723/IMG_20131104_232154_248_zps915f6e93.jpg)
Smoked cheese takes at 6 weeks before you eat it. I wont touch mine for 2 months
Try it again in about a month and you may be pleasantly surprised by how it tastes then. After reading all the comments about letting cheese age after smoking I didn't even taste the first batch I did for 4 weeks. I can tell you that Mrs. tailfeathers was complaining about the smell after the first batch came off the smoker, but she sure likes it after it aged in the fridge for a month!
What they said. I keep my cheese for 6 weeks or so.
Your cheese looks like it got good color and I agree with everyone else, don't touch your cheese for at least 4-5 weeks longer if you can wait that long.
If I didn't know better I would say that TenPoint5 had talked you into tasting it early so you could experience the ashtray taste and the wait would be easier, at least that's he claims that's the reason. ;)
Agree with everybody. My first attempt at cheese, I didn't know about the aging period, and it tasted exactly like I licked an ashtray (don't ask ;) ). It was easy to wait a long time, as I had planned to never eat a piece of smoked cheese again...just held onto it for a while and Dad convinced me to try it when he sampled it about a month after it was smoked.
Ok thanks everyone! I did read about letting age but now I know why. I have it all vac sealed now and in the fridge. Should I leave it in the fridge to age or freeze it?
Fridge should be fine. Freezing can cause it to crumble later, down the road, when you try to slice it.
Quote from: Z7extreme on November 05, 2013, 08:33:47 PM
Ok thanks everyone! I did read about letting age but now I know why. I have it all vac sealed now and in the fridge. Should I leave it in the fridge to age or freeze it?
For my own sanity I now write the smoked date and a don't open before date on all my smoked cheeses. Getting older has it's challenges you know....
And definitely keep in fridge.
Nope it wasn't me! I didn't get the chance to help make his wait time easier. He learned the same way the rest of us learned.
The harder the cheese the longer the wait. Soft cheeses 15 - 20 days. Hard cheeses 30 - 45 days is the general rule of thumb I use.
I agree with all the above posts..I've got cheese in fridge from oct 2012 ...not sure how it lasted that long but it's about gone and it tastes great!!
Hmmm I may have to try to smoke some cheese one of these days. ;)
Quote from: pensrock on November 08, 2013, 09:16:33 AM
Hmmm I may have to try to smoke some cheese one of these days. ;)
Says the cheese master himself :D
The only thing that I might add......Vac Seal the cheese for the aging. Do not use plastic wrap. I found some cheese that I did last year that I only wrapped in plastic wrap and put in a zip lock bag. The cheese had a plastic taste to it and it got trashed. I have had cheese in the fridge for over 2 years that was vac sealed and it was fantastic. It may have been the plastic wrap that I was using was a cheap brand but I will never ever do that again. Yuck!
Sailor,
I do not vac pack smoked cheese unless it was cut into after smoking or if I plan to ship it out. I do wrap my cheese with Glad Press-n-Seal then into a zip bag. Been doing this for years and never had any kind of a problem. I even had cheese wrapped this way for over fourteen months and it was perfectly fine when I unwrapped it. My guess is you must have used another kind of wrap or some thing else went wrong. But my cheeses taste great.
That said, there is nothing wrong with vacuum sealing, it works great. But for me when I smoke cheese it is normally 20-30 pounds or more at a time and wrapping the way I do is quicker, easier and cheaper. I choose the cheep easy way when I can. ;D
I do not know what the people I smoke it for do with theirs after I give it back to them but I never had a complaint. :)
Bottom line is.... what ever works for you is the best way to do it. 8) Have fun and keep the smoke rolling.
Is it the smoke that makes it last in the fridge?
Does it not get mouldy?
Vent open? Half? Or closed to smoke cheese?
This is my tomorrow project.
It's very cold outside (-26)so temp shouldn't get too hot.
Quote from: Moosehumper on December 07, 2013, 03:22:12 PM
Vent open? Half? Or closed to smoke cheese?
This is my tomorrow project.
It's very cold outside (-26)so temp shouldn't get too hot.
Vent open all the way for most if not all smoking otherwise the smoke and moisture can back up into the smoke generator and cause problems and you risk the dreaded black rain on your product. Use your smoke generator only no heating element on.
I believe that smoking is an old world preserving method and that is probably why it lasts longer in the fridge.
i can't help but laugh a little, with you, not at you, because of done it twice. this last time it was feta, it just looked so good i couldn't resist, and now its been vac sealed and in the fridge/freezer for 3 weeks so far. smoked cheese is like a good wine, just gotta give it time.
oh and to share an idea on labeling, i did a decent batch this last time and went into Excel and made a grid of labels with type of cheese and dates. cut em up and slid it into the vac bag before sealing and i don't have to worry about it rubbing off
Quote from: Snoopy on December 07, 2013, 03:50:00 PM
oh and to share an idea on labeling, i did a decent batch this last time and went into Excel and made a grid of labels with type of cheese and dates. cut em up and slid it into the vac bag before sealing and i don't have to worry about it rubbing off
I picked up an old box of Avery 5163 peel off printer labels from my wife's work and downloaded the template and use that for my labels. On cheese you can peel and stick right on the bag on top of the cheese and on other stuff I put it on the bottom part of the bag where I vacuum sealed.
Done cheese several times. I use a Sharpie to write cheese type and smoke date on wrapper, I found that this is the fastest way. On softer cheese like cream cheese, it has been ready in 2 weeks. Velveeta takes about 3, and cheeses like swiss, mozzarella, pepper jack, Cheddar, colby-jack, etc. will start to turn after 26 days, and be great in 28 days. Very hard cheeses can take 6 weeks. Hope this helps.
I just got it all wrapped and in the fridge.
It was hard to resist the temptation but I also did a dozen eggs to make smoke devils 8).
Gouda, mozzarella & 2 different cheddars.
I had no problems keeping the temperature down. - 20C outside.
My inside temp maxed out at 58F.