# Cheese on the WSM- first time!



## yankee2bbq (Jan 6, 2018)

This is something I always wanted to do, and thanks to this forum, especially gmc 2003, I was able to finally do it.  Outside temperature was 33 degrees during my smoke.  Cheese:  extra sharp chedder, sharp cheddar, New York chedder, Swiss, and pepper jack.


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## motocrash (Jan 6, 2018)

Man.They took some nice color!


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## dools103 (Jan 6, 2018)

Just got my tray and some dust and pellets to try some cold smoking, looks good will post some pics when I try


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## swampsmoker (Jan 6, 2018)

Looks good! How long did you end up smokin for?


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## Central PA Cowboy (Jan 6, 2018)

This is great! Should make the carousel!


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## Beanhall (Jan 6, 2018)

Looks good. I am cold smoking cheese, salt and butter tomorrow. What flavor smoke did you use?


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 7, 2018)

swampsmoker said:


> Looks good! How long did you end up smokin for?


Smoked for 3 hours.



Beanhall said:


> Looks good. I am cold smoking cheese, salt and butter tomorrow. What flavor smoke did you use?


I used Traeger brand, apple pellets.


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 7, 2018)

Thanks everyone for the comments. 
First time using my vac sealer too.  Works great.  

Now, the hard part is waiting 2 weeks.  That cheese will go good with our deer jerky!


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## SmokinAl (Jan 7, 2018)

Your cheese looks fantastic!
It really took on some nice color!
Congrats on making the carousel!
Al


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## gmc2003 (Jan 7, 2018)

Your cheese looks fantastic yankee, great color. Next time load the smoker up, because that cheese won't last very long.

Point for sure
Chris

Note: instead of marking the cheese, next time just make a diagram of you cheese placement on a piece of paper.


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 7, 2018)

gmc2003 said:


> Note: instead of marking the cheese, next time just make a diagram of you cheese placement on a piece of paper.


Good idea!


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 7, 2018)

smokinal said:


> Your cheese looks fantastic!
> It really took on some nice color!
> Congrats on making the carousel!
> Al



Thanks Al!


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## crazymoon (Jan 7, 2018)

Y2BBQ, good looking cheese,you better start another batch so you have a good supply come summer!


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 7, 2018)

crazymoon said:


> Y2BBQ, good looking cheese,you better start another batch so you have a good supply come summer!



YEAP!  On the grocery list: cheese and more cheese.


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## one eyed jack (Jan 7, 2018)

Congrats on taking the plunge.  Nice looking cheese.

Add Cream Cheese to your shopping list.  It's my favorite and the favorite of a bunch of folks I've shared it with.

(The Frog mat is not necessary)


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 7, 2018)

I see you put your cheese on the lower level. What was the outside temperature?  Wondering if it is better than being on the top rack.  My temp inside the smoker got up to 75 degrees.  And outside temp was 33 degrees.


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## ab canuck (Jan 7, 2018)

Really great looking cheese. That is on my list, but it seems I never had the time for it in the past yet. So looking to do that in next month or so. That is a Like for sure.


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## one eyed jack (Jan 8, 2018)

yankee2bbq said:


> I see you put your cheese on the lower level. What was the outside temperature?  Wondering if it is better than being on the top rack.  My temp inside the smoker got up to 75 degrees.  And outside temp was 33 degrees.



I fill both racks, (And usually fill more completely than this).

I use two 6 inch tubes. (They fit better in my 18 inch smoker), and I figure on them raising the temperature inside the smoker by 10 to 15 degrees.  I don't smoke cheese until the temps go below 45*.  In my experience; the cheese will start slumping through the grates at about 85* smoke chamber temp.

I have put a frozen gallon size water jug in the water bowl to help keep temps down, but not often.


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 8, 2018)

Wow!  That’s a lot of cheese!  Thanks for the info. I want to do another batch this weekend.  The daytime high is supposed to be around 30 degrees and cloudy.  So, I’m hoping only 1 smoke tube will give me enough heat to smoke.  (Or does that even matter?)


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## bbqbrett (Jan 8, 2018)

Nice job!  I smoked cheese for the first time a couple of years ago...also with the help of this site!  Always enjoyed smoked cheese but rarely got it due to the expense.   Doing it yourself is well worth it.  Let us know how it came out.  Got to do some more soon as I am running low.


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## Phil Chart (Jan 8, 2018)

Looks great. One thing I found out by accident smoking cheese is vacuum pack it for a week or two and the flavor will get even better and carry thru the whole block
I could go for some right now. Looks like a weekend project it's only going to be 10 degrees good for cold smoking cheese


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 8, 2018)

Thanks for the information Phil!  I was hoping 25 degrees outside temp wasn’t too cold to smoke cheese in the WSM!


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## one eyed jack (Jan 9, 2018)

yankee2bbq said:


> Wow!  That’s a lot of cheese!  Thanks for the info. I want to do another batch this weekend.  The daytime high is supposed to be around 30 degrees and cloudy.  So, I’m hoping only 1 smoke tube will give me enough heat to smoke.  (Or does that even matter?)



I usually load the smoker even more than this.  Try to use all available space, but if I remember correctly;  This was my first Cream Cheese smoke and I was not sure if I would have trouble with the Cream cheese having a lower "melt point" than the other cheeses so I intentionally went with a lighter load in the smoker.  That is why I used the Frog mat under the Cream cheese.  As it turns out Cream cheese is more resistant to melting and slumping than most other cheeses that I have smoked.

You want to be careful in not letting your cheese freeze, (either in the smoker or afterwards.)  Freezing will break the bond between the fat and the rest of the cheese and ruin it, more than likely.

I don't recall trying to smoke cheese below freezing but as I mentioned earlier, the tubes I use raise the smoker temp by 10 to 15 degrees.  If your setup acts similarly you should be good at 30*.  I have used a digital thermometer to monitor smoker temps while smoking cheese and that is how I determined that my tubes raise the temp's a known amount.

At 30* I would monitor the smoker temps just to make sure it didn't get too low.

If your high is only 30 I would proceed with caution.

My tubes burn for at least 4 hours, I do use both of them for a smoke, and I have double smoked cheese as well.  (Burned the 2 tubes twice for the same batch of cheese)  The double smoking works better with some cheeses than others so that is not necessarily a recommendation.  (Swiss works pretty well double smoked, In my opinion.  Cheddar not so much and I have had one brick of Cream cheese that dried a bit after double smoking).

Here are a couple shots of a better use of space on the smoker grates.  One is before smoking and the other after.  Just wanted to show a more efficient use of available space.

Even just using grocery store cheese this is about $50.00 bucks worth.

I just use zip lock bags to store the cheese for the first two week "aging / mellowing period" then vacuum bag and store in the fridge.  I have stored in the vacuum bags for over a year.  Just make sure you dry moisture off of the cheese before vacuum bagging for any storing over a month.  I don't bother vacuum bagging if the cheese s not expected to last more than a couple weeks.

Best luck with this weekends smoking.


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 9, 2018)

one eyed jack said:


> I usually load the smoker even more than this.  Try to use all available space, but if I remember correctly;  This was my first Cream Cheese smoke and I was not sure if I would have trouble with the Cream cheese having a lower "melt point" than the other cheeses so I intentionally went with a lighter load in the smoker.  That is why I used the Frog mat under the Cream cheese.  As it turns out Cream cheese is more resistant to melting and slumping than most other cheeses that I have smoked.
> 
> You want to be careful in not letting your cheese freeze, (either in the smoker or afterwards.)  Freezing will break the bond between the fat and the rest of the cheese and ruin it, more than likely.
> 
> ...


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 9, 2018)

Good information.  However, I did a few things different when it came time to vacuum sealing the cheese.  Right after smoking my cheese, I let the cheese set out for about an hour outside ( 33-35 degrees) for about an hour before vacuum sealing.   Will this ruin or change the “smoke” flavor of the cheese.


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## one eyed jack (Jan 9, 2018)

yankee2bbq said:


> Good information.  However, I did a few things different when it came time to vacuum sealing the cheese.  Right after smoking my cheese, I let the cheese set out for about an hour outside ( 33-35 degrees) for about an hour before vacuum sealing.   Will this ruin or change the “smoke” flavor of the cheese.



I can't see where leaving your cheese out for an hour or more will hurt it at all.  As far as changing the flavor;  I just don't know but doubt that it will hurt it.

I can't imagine that your hurting anything by vac bagging right out of the smoker.  I just figure that I am going to vac bag in a couple weeks anyway and that zip bags are good enough for the two week aging process.

I often start a cheese smoke and go off to do other things, leaving the smoker unattended for 5 or 6 hours.  (An hour or more after the tubes have gone out.  Sometimes more).  If you are smoking in warmer temps and your cheese starts to "sweat" from getting too warm, leaving it out will help a little to dry it.  If I get  sweating on the cheese I will dry it with paper towels before putting it in zip locks and refrigeration.

As I mentioned about a smaller smoker load for my first Cream cheese smoke;  I think you are doing good to start out with small batches till you get a better feel for how things are going to turn out but with cheese, unless you melt it with too high a smoker temp, it's hard to completely fail.

One of my earliest attempts,  (In my kettle grill), the cheese started slumping between the grill wires.  Still tasted fine.  Just looked a little funky.

Tiptoeing into the water, here.


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## yankee2bbq (Jan 9, 2018)

I appreciate your help!  You sure do know a lot!  Thanks!


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## Rings Я Us (Jan 9, 2018)

Buy a couple blocks of cheese to smoke. Use it up and don't freeze it.


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## one eyed jack (Jan 10, 2018)

yankee2bbq said:


> I appreciate your help!  You sure do know a lot!  Thanks!



Your welcome.  I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I'm happy to pass on what I've learned.

Let us know how your next cheese smoke goes.


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