Hola everybody!!


 
T

TonyS

New member
Hi Everyone,

I'm Tony currently residing in Lancaster, UK. I've got a 18" WSM and also an 18" Weber Kettle.

I've been into smoking and grilling for a while, but mainly used kettles for offset cooking/smoking and dabbled with a PBC. I have recently got myself the WSM with a Q-MasteR - LITE attached which is absolutely wonderful. Had my 1st smoke last weekend and went for some chicken halves and then pulled pork the day after, what a dream to cook on.

With some support of a few threads in here, I smoked some cheese this morning (I woke up at 05:30 to make sure it was cool) and having completed a little taste test, I'm happy to say it went well!! I'll be leaving them wrapped in the fridge for now to sit - I have seen mixed suggestions though, leave for 3 days/leave for 3 weeks? any thoughts?

And just because I am sure you will all be interested, tonight I will be making smoked sausages and dauphinoise potatoes on my WSM :)
Happy to hopefully contribute!

T
 
Is everyone in the UK named Tony (@TonyUK)?? 🤣🤣

Welcome to TVWBB Tony, and hope the cheese went well. That's still something that I've never done, so I don't have any tips to give you, other than I have read that "aging" it wrapped in the fridge for some number of weeks seems to be the norm for the flavors to mellow/even out. Since it's your first time, try a little now, then in a week, then in another week until you find YOUR sweet spot.

Potatoes and sausages sound great for dinner (which is just about here for you!)

Rich
 
Welcome Tony. I usually leave my smoked cheese in the fridge for about four weeks to let it mellow to where I like it. It also depends how long you smoked it for and how much smoke. Since this is your first time, check it once a week and if you can, vacuum seal it when the taste is what you want. If you keep track of how long you smoked it for, how much smoke and the time in the fridge, you can get pretty consistent on your future smokes. Also, different types of cheese absorb smoke differently so experiment. Keep us posted on your progress.
 
Welcome Tony! I second about everything Richard in NS said about the cheese. I always seal mine for 4 weeks (I even write
the "open" date on cheese gifts LOL) Have waited a year to open some, and it's still great.
I mostly smoke cheddar and pepper jack, but the softer cheeses don't seem to need as much time to mellow.
Dinner sounds delicious!
 
Brenda T said:
Welcome Tony! I second about everything Richard in NS said about the cheese. I always seal mine for 4 weeks (I even write
the "open" date on cheese gifts LOL) Have waited a year to open some, and it's still great.
I mostly smoke cheddar and pepper jack, but the softer cheeses don't seem to need as much time to mellow.
Dinner sounds delicious!
Click to expand...
Brenda, I usually smoke cheddar and Gouda. I have never tried softer cheeses so could you let me know what you have tried please. Thanks!
 
Richard in NS said:
Brenda, I usually smoke cheddar and Gouda. I have never tried softer cheeses so could you let me know what you have tried please. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ooh, let's see :unsure: I have smoked Brie, several flavors of goat cheese, mozzarella, Jarlsberg, camembert, cream cheese - I think
I even tried cottage cheese once. LOL Most of this was years ago, when I first discovered cold smoking. I went crazy - paprika,
sugar, brown sugar, ketchup, coffee, olives, boiled eggs, you name it.
Fun experiments, but I kind of settled on the cheddar, swiss, gouda and pepper jack as our favorite cheeses.

I do smoke some brie and flavored goat cheese for snack trays around the holidays. It seems to me the softer cheeses are
"ready" earlier. In fact, back then I let the cream cheese age like the others and it wasn't very good. That's a popular smoke item now,
and I think it's eaten immediately after smoking.

Not a cheese, but one of my "most" favorite things to smoke is boiled eggs. I love them as is, and they also make dynamite
deviled eggs. I don't usually let them rest for more than an hour or two.
 
Hey All,

Apologies for my awful reply response!

So I smoked a Lancashire mature cheddar and honestly, it was great!! I did taste immediately and already the flavours were great. I struggled at first to keep the temp low. My approach was a 05:00 start, the night before I actually filled my water pan with water the night before and stuck it in the freezer, so I essentially just had the whole pan frozen.

I did a 3 hour smoke and it turned out really well.

I think I left it for about a week and even at that point it was great.

IMG_20220601_083612.jpg
 
When I started smoking cheese, the standard warning was "give it time to mellow, otherwise it tastes like an ashtray!"
I kind of snickered to myself "I was a smoker for 24 years, but I have no idea how an ashtray tastes".

One day, a small piece broke off as I was vacuum sealing and I popped it in my mouth.
Well, whaddaya know? It tasted exactly as you would expect an ashtray to taste! LOL
 
Yeah Brenda, the first time I smoked cheese was for the holidays, two weeks before Christmas. Still “ashtray” at Christmas. It was wonderful the end of January, after the family gatherings were all over. Now I try for the first really cold morning in November and one of the last mornings with frost in May so I get the holidays and summer months supply covered.
 
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