# this was cool, and it worked..smoked cheese



## bw0529 (Mar 5, 2009)

this may have been posted on here before..found this on you tube. 1 soup can.1 new soulder iron,(old one has lead on it),pellets. cut top of can part way off, fold top back, put hole in end of top, to put iron in. fill can about 1/3 of pellets,fold top back and  put can on its side in smoker, plug iron in and smoke. it worked great and lots of smoke. i used orange pellets, great smoke. smoked for about 2 hours. iron cost $12.00. i used Cabots extra extra sharp cheese. thanks for looking.
Bob


----------



## bigbaldbbq (Mar 5, 2009)

Nice!! I may have to try that out. How did the cheese turn out?


----------



## bw0529 (Mar 5, 2009)

they had a real good smoke taste,( my son buys smoked cheese every week from where he buys his meat) and he said it was as good as theres. they smoke there own cheese there. i warm the smoker up before i started the smoke and it held about 40*. i did it in the shop(call it shop cause i had a body shop for over 30 yrs.) this is why i did it inside. around 12* outside and a little messy.:( thanks for looking. going to do more this week.
Bob


----------



## scubadoo97 (Mar 5, 2009)

Good post.

I've been using this method for at least a year now.  I have one can with the hole in the lid and one with the hole in the bottom side.  This way I can stand the can upright and it works well for shorter smokes where you don't want to use a lot of chips/pellets.  

I did run into one problem the first time I used it in my MES.  The MES is pretty well insulated and I had the vent barely open.  The temps rose to over 125 and the cheese melted big time.  Since the ambient temperature here is pretty high anyway and I get a good amount of sun beating down on my smoker in the afternoon, I have started to insert a couple of frozen foam coolant packs in the water pan when cold smoking.  

I use this cold smoker for cold smoked salmon as well.  I cold smoked a tray of corn kernels for a smoked corn soup that was pretty amazing.


----------



## butt smoker (Mar 5, 2009)

I have also used this system but the soldering iron burned out. What  type of iron do you use? RC


----------



## grothe (Mar 5, 2009)

Cool....Nice job Bob!


----------



## xjcamaro (Mar 16, 2009)

Would you be able to use wood chunks in the can instead of pellets?


----------



## xjcamaro (Mar 18, 2009)

I tried the can and soldering iron thing, with out cheese, to see if it worked ok with the wood and iron i had, and wala! It worked, im going to have to get some cheese and try it out. I always had trouble getting the heat low enough to not melt the cheese, with my test tonight the temp never got over 60*, thats great. I can usually get the heat low, but then its too low to produce the smoke. I cant wait!


----------



## rw willy (Mar 18, 2009)

Who'd a thunk it?
This place is too cool.
I have got to do this
Thanks


----------



## bw0529 (Mar 18, 2009)

XJ... sorry, i only have time to get on about once or twice a week. glad you got to try this with chunks. how big were the ones you used? going to smoke a chick, and salmon this week end. will have to try it with chunks. a hand full of pellets lasted me 2 hrs. and only about 1/3 of them burnt. thanks for trying and getting back.
Bob


----------



## bbq engineer (Mar 18, 2009)

Very Ingenious! I will put this to good use as well. Points!


----------



## bw0529 (Mar 18, 2009)

thanks BBQ.. found it on youtube.. the smoke on the cheese was great.


----------



## carpetride (Mar 19, 2009)

Learn something everyday!  Thanks for the tip


----------



## scubadoo97 (Mar 19, 2009)

Just be careful and don't put the can too close to your food.  There is still some heat coming off the soldering iron and the smoldering chip/pellets.  I melted cheese with my rig at the bottom of my smoker and the cheese at the top but I had the vent barely open.  I once used this rig under some curred salmon for cold smoked salmon and had the rig just below the salmon.  Ended up partially cooking my salmon.  You guys north of the Mason Dixie line may not have a problem.  Here in sunny Florida we start out with an ambient temp of near 90


----------



## azrocker (Mar 19, 2009)

I use my cold smoker on my gas grill with the grill off. I like to use hickory. It really goes well with a pepper jack.







http://porkypas.com/smokers.htm


----------



## richoso1 (Mar 19, 2009)

I've used chips in small amounts that worked very well.


----------



## xjcamaro (Mar 20, 2009)

I used chunks but cut them down so they were more like slivers about 2-3" long and about 1/2"-1" diameter roughly. I would only use this method for cold smoking things that dont need to be cooked. Maybe i misunderstood your one post BW0529, but i would not use this method to cook a chicken. Not enough heat.

Anyway i tried it last night in the brinkman, can and souldering iron laying on the lava rocks and both lower and upper racks full of cheese. Loaded up the can and plugged in the soldering iron and BAM! we were smoking cheese at a cool 40* in the smoker. I did have one block of cheese that did start to melt a tiny bit but it was the block directly above the can. I let them smoke for 4 hours. I had to add wood every now and then just a few peices at a time. And i also gave the can a shake to stir up the coals that were smoldering maybe once an hour and that seemed to help and keep things burning. I have to say that this has been my best success smoking cheese, and it was extremely easy to do! 

The cheese is sitting in the fridge right now soaking up the smoke flavor, so ill be cutting into that tonight. I also took some pics and ill get those up soon as well.


----------

