# First cheese in the smoker. Cheddar on pecan with Q view



## biggqwesty (Dec 15, 2014)

So first up thanks guys for the very helpful advice. 
It's a beautiful 25 degree c today so in go the new pecan pellets into my home made tray. 
I put 1x 3ltr frozen bottle in but temp still climbed in the keg smoker. 
So in with a second. Lol 
Anyway that bought it down to 20 ish degrees. 

So cheese. This is purely a trial run. 
I've cut 6 bits roughly 2x2x1 inches and I'll pull then after 1, 2, and 3 hours. And I'll leave one lot for longer than the other. 
So not only do I learn how smoked we like it I'll hopefully see some age difference. 

So yea I'm using a simple pecan pellet with cheddar cheese block. 

So let's go. 
4 pm, and were off


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## biggqwesty (Dec 15, 2014)

Also would this be a mild smoke??


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## biggqwesty (Dec 15, 2014)

And we're done. Now the hard part. Waiting. Lol 

And I had to try a bit lol. 
And you guys are right. Like licking charcoal 
Anyway. Now resting


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## wade (Dec 15, 2014)

Good looking trial batch of cheese. It is also good to see you taking the time to test a range of times. Looking forward to hearing the result


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## biggqwesty (Dec 15, 2014)

Thanks wade. My mum's side of the family are all chef's so I've got a bit to live up to lol. 
I'm planning a 2015 Christmas gift now and hoping say march to June next year I can produce a nice product which I can use and do a good job of it. 

One thing I really noticed with the 2hour smoked batch was the amount of oil which had extruded from the cheese. 
The 1 hr and 3hr batches didn't have much if any oil showing. I didn't wipe any off as Mr T's suggested oil as a safe layer to preserve the cheese so hopefully a bit of natural oil will do the same thing. 

Anyway geeze it's a strong smelling house tonight.


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## mr t 59874 (Jan 2, 2015)

Like your smoker.  Your smoke looks fine.

If you would like to smoke at a cooler temp with what you have, I suggest placing a vertical rack on top of your smoker covered with a box of some sort.  You could place a couple slats on top of your smoker and then place the box on them to cover your rack.  You could also place a larger box over the whole thing.  You will find that the smoke will be what I call cleaner or smoother as most of the creosote deposits will remain in the smoker.  This most likely will enable you to consume the cheese almost immediately after smoking without the sharp taste that you experienced before.  If you  use a cardboard box, cut a flap in the top so you can adjust air flow.  Any thing though will need a exit hole of some sort. 

If you look at pictures 1 & 2 in the following thread, it will give you a rough idea as to what I tried to describe.  My Cold Smoking Options w/Q - View

Enjoy your cheese.

Tom


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## biggqwesty (Jan 9, 2015)

so lets do a bit of update..

we opened our first batch at Christmas time 2 weeks after smoking them.

so we had my mums side of the family (all chiefs) and we had a rather good outcome..

so the block which was smoked for one hour..

this block had a rather sharp bite and hit of smoke flavor.. it was nice but a bit harsh for the few which didn't favour the smoked goods so much.

the second we had was the block which was smoked for 2 hours.

this proved to be very oily. I'm not sure if this carried from the issue smoking as i notice a lot more oil on these blocks after smoking than the other 2. but didn't affect the taste.

this block wasn't as sharp as the 1hr block and the flavor lasted a little longer.

the 3hour block was by far the best and agreed by all parties..

this block proved to have the smoothest and longest linger of flavor from the lot. very enjoyably and i had a few orders lol.

so we still have the other set of 3 in storage so ill pull them out after a few more weeks and try them. see if anything has changed and will report back

cheers


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## biggqwesty (Jan 18, 2015)

Sorry I missed that reply tom, but thanks for the tip. My new style vertical smoker with some what separate the compartments similar to your stack idea. So sorry for the short time hop but due to a staggered first trial and reply frame it's been roughly 6 weeks since I smoked the cheeses. So I cracked the one hour smoke cheese yesterday. First thing wife noted was "yea I really like this 3hr smoked cheese"....That pretty much sums it up. This piece is now a smooth taste. Still imo a sharper hit than the previous 3hr cheese but not far off. Was a pleasant surprise. And now to try the other 2 pieces lol Cheers guys


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