Smoking Newbie

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tabasco813

Newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2014
8
11
Hello.  I am fairly new to the Masterbuilt electric smoker (only had it since Christmas) and REALLY new to the cold smoking side of things.  I just bought the Masterbuilt cold smoker attachment.  I bought it so I could cold smoke cheese and add some additional smoke to my beef and pork.  First of all, here is how I set it up so that I don't have to detach it if I don't want to.  I had an extra furniture dolly in the attic, and I added some extra 1x4" pieces of wood and the cold smoker and the attachment sit on the furniture dolly.  I can easily roll the smoker out of the garage and back whenever I want to use them.  Even when I didn't have the cold smoker attachment, I still put the smoker on this dolly and it makes it very convenient to move around.  You can get the furniture dolly for about $20 at Lowe's, Home Depot etc.  

As for the cold smoking of the cheese...it was just eh.  I was pretty disappointed.  I smoked it with apple wood for about 4 hours watching the internal temperature and made sure it never got over 90 degrees F.  I smoked a 2" thick round of provolone on a hot humid 80 degree day.  I used ice in the liquid pan to keep it cool.  The color of the cheese did not change dramatically and the flavor is smoky but not in a good way.  It kind of tastes like bitter, like "burning, wet rolled up newspapers."  I know that doesn't sound pleasant but I don't know how to describe it.  I don't know what I did wrong.  The only thing that I could think that might have gone wrong is that I had a couple of flare ups in the cold smoking chimney when I was refueling the attachment (putting more wood chips in the chimney).

Any suggestions to get the smokey flavor with out wet newspaper taste would be greatly appreciated.  HELP!!

.
 
You have to let the cheese mellow in the fridge or below 60° for 2 weeks. If you don't allow the rest time it is normally bitter. You should also see a color change as you smoke. I smoke mainly to color.

I use a MES 40 with AMNPS.

After


Before


I hope that will fix your problem.

Happy smoken.

David
 
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