# Bacon and cheese



## rob g (Nov 14, 2018)

I'm doing my second round of cold smoke on my belly bacon and had an empty rack in need of filling so I thought I'd try my hand at smoking cheese over some apple pellets. 

I did the first round of smoke on the bacon on Monday. It was about 5C and I was having trouble keeping the pellet tray lit. I broke up a lump of charcoal in the wood chip tray and lit it with the torch. This added enough heat for the tray to take off and stay lit. 

Today it was about -2C so I picked up a light socket that plugs into the end of an extension cord. I put a 60 watt bulb in the bottom of the smoker and it worked so well I had to unplug it as the sun was also adding some heat and keeping the smoker about 50-60F. This worked great while i got some time on the cheese. Once the sun went down the outside temp has dropped to -4C but the bulb and tray are keeping the temp between 65-70F for the bacon.

My cheese is about 3/4" thick slabs of med & old cheddar and a piece of marble I found on sale. I cut them in three and took one pics of each off at 1.5 hr , 3 hr, and 4 hours. They're in the fridge until I wrap them tomorrow for a few weeks. Is this thickness of cheese enough to keep the cheese from drying out with the smoking process?

The bacon will have about 16-18 hours of smoke on it by bedtime tonight so it will go into the fridge until at least Sat night before I slice and package it. Due some of the posts I'm seeing here I'm trying to give the bacon more time in the fridge before packaging. My garage smells really good this week lol


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## gmc2003 (Nov 15, 2018)

The cheese will be fine. That's about the same thickness as an 8oz block.

Chris


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## rob g (Nov 15, 2018)

This is the bacon after about 16 hours of smoke


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## SonnyE (Nov 24, 2018)

So Rob, Hi, how did it come out?
The Bacon looks good enough to eat. But all I can do is drool.
I have 4 slabs in the Pellical stage right now and was planning on Apple Wood as my smoke.
I'm trying to decide on Pellets, or Dust. Heat is not a factor for me as I have an 8 foot cooling tube for the smoke before it enters the smoker.
This Makin Bacon takes the Patience of Job.


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## rob g (Nov 25, 2018)

The bacon tastes really good. It turned out a lot better than the stuff I've done in the past. I thought the past bacon had an off taste due to bad smoke. The smoke flavor on this bacon is quite pleasant. The cheese is vac packed in the fridge until the middle of Dec .

I recently bought a Master Forge propane smoker off Kijiji for $50. It's one of those square tin boxes with a burner in the bottom, 3 meat racks and a water pan. By putting the water pan over the pellet tray the smoke hits it first and some of the nasty elements stick to the bottom of it. I haven't done a mailbox mod yet but likely will soon.


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## chopsaw (Nov 25, 2018)

Rob , nice color on the bacon .


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## ab canuck (Nov 25, 2018)

Bacon looks great, Cheese sounds great as well, You are going to enjoy them.  Like


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