Cold Smoked Pork Chops and Cheese

[WarriorMedic]

Giving the cold smoking a try today too.  Putting some alder smoke on pork loins and then sealing in vacuum bags to meditate for the night in the fridge.  Actually do some grilling on the SRG tomorrow.  ;D

While I was doing it, I put some white vermont cheddar and a nice monterey pepper jack in there as well.

Trying a block of dry ice to keep the temps lower in there....seems to be working so far, more to follow on that idea.  Hoping the cheese will be good, and I'm determined to give it at least 4 weeks in the vacuum bags/refrigerator.

[Tenpoint5]

Looks like it should work. Let us know what kind of temps you have in the cabinet with the dry ice during the smoke

[WarriorMedic]

I'm an hour into the two hours I planned on, and the temp has gotten down to about 55*.  I'm in the garage out of the sun, but its about 80* in there this afternoon, so the $5 I paid for the block looks like it might have been worth it.  I think next time I will put in in the box about an hour before I start smoking though.  The meat and cheese were both icebox cold, but the dry ice actually dropped the cabinet temp about 20 degrees over the past hour.

[pensrock]

Looks like its keeping it cold. Which will be good for the pork but I like to keep the temps a little warmer when doing cheeses. 85-90 F. It seems to take on more color with the warmer temps. Can't say for sure about the taste though, it may taste the same?  ???
Looking good so far.  :)

[ghost9mm]

It will be interesting to find out after the smoke is done and you vacuum seal the cheese for 2 to 4 weeks if the cheese holds that good smoke flavor..(4 weeks is better)
I have to agree with Pens..I think if the temps are in 70's to 80's the color of the cheese deepens. will the color make the cheese better tasting I am guessing it would..
Good Luck it looks great..

[WarriorMedic]

I agree pensrock and ghost, the cheese certainly smelled like it was smoked, but didn't change much in color.  I'll know about the taste in a month and will report back.

I noticed a problem with the dry ice setup that I didn't foresee.  It was so cold that it actually created a negative pressure inside the smoke cabinet, and the pull of warm air through the cabinet vent actually had smoke coming out the vents of the generator.  Luckily my inline fan setup has enough vacuum so that I was able to place it near the top vent and equalize the pressure.  I think with dry ice like this, you might get away with not using a cold smoke adapter at all.

Going to do another cheese batch with that configuration and see what kind of temps I maintain in the cabinet, and have something to compare yesterday's batch too.