Hello - and a cheese question

[NickHacking]

Dear forum members,

I'm a complete newcomer to the forum, and to food smoking.

I live in the UK.

My wife bought me one of the little counter-top two-rack machines for Christmas and I did my first experiment last night. Wild duck breast. I read a number of recipes and then finally opted for a 50:50 salt/sugar cure for an hour, followed by 2 hours at power level one and twenty minutes at power level three. Oak pucks.

I have to say I was delighted with the result. I've set up my cooker in the garage, with the vent tube coming out of the window, and it simply worked as it should. There was a little leak of smoke from the unit itself, but nothing to get excited about. The next project is going to be bacon - I've seen posts from others suggesting that this entirely possible with the little convection cooker.

What I'm not so sure about is the question of cold smoking. The Bradley advertising blurb quite clearly states the unit can be used to smoke cheese but there seems to be some debate as to whether the device can generate smoke with no (or very little) heat. My oven was running at around 85 C last night, on power level one, and I suspect that this far too hot for smoking cheese.

There does seem to be an idea, or rumour, that after Bradley's initial market testing, they may have modified the design to allow smoke generation without deliberate heating, but it isn't clear to me (from the user manual) that this is the case... does anyone have a definitive answer?

If I were hot-smoking something in my little Bradley and led the vent pipe into a separate cold cabinet, would I be able to cold smoke at the same time?

I look forward to picking everyone's brains as I explore the possibilities with my new Bradley.

Nick

[tskeeter]

Welcome to the forum!

Although I don't have one of the counter top smokers, your description of how you'd go about cold smoking cheese is pretty much a spot on description of how the Bradley cold smoke attachment for the larger smokers works.  The idea is that you've removed the smoke generator heat source from your cold smoking location and used the vent pipe/flexible duct to cool the smoke between the smoke generator and the cold smoking chamber.

I'd give it a try and see how it works.

For a cold cabinet, something as simple as a clean cardboard box with a cooling rack suspended in it would work.  From a recent discussion, it sounded like one forum member has been using a discarded liquor box and some dryer duct as the cold smoke attachment for his larger smoker for quite some time.


Forum members report best color development is obtained on their smoked cheese when the cold chamber is about 85F - 90F.

[dave01]

Welcome to the forum

[ragweed]

Welcome to the forum from Nebraska.  You're correct, the BCS will create too much heat to smoke cheese.  But, your idea of generating smoke in the BCS to be used in another chamber is pure genius!  Go for it :) :)  And while you're generating smoke for the cheese, throw some chicken hind quarters in the BCS.  It does a great job on chicken.

[Smoker John]

Welcome aboard, agree with ragweed, great idea.

[NickHacking]

Thank you all for the kind welcome.

In this little corner of the world we have rich, if clay-based, soil; and rain. A lot of rain. The crop that never fails us is grass and there must be a dozen cheese makers within a five-mile radius of my home: plenty of raw material with which to experiment!

The project for this weekend is cold smoking Lancashire cheese using the exhaust from my two-rack unit. I thought I'd try apple wood and pork in the oven itself. It had never occurred to me to use a cardboard box: I'd been thinking along the lines of a wooden cabinet - but what a brilliant suggestion. Since the box is going to be inside the garage, rain shouldn't be an issue. If the set-up fails, I've lost next to nothing - if it works I can make something more substantial.

I shall report back.

Kind wishes,

Nick