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smoker recipies

guruatbol

guruatbol

Always on vacation!
Ok, now that I have a smoker and I had a great experience with turkey. SWMBO says that she was totally convinced that she hated turkey, then she ate the smoked turkey we did for thanksgiving and has now changed her mind.

I would like to try some cheese and other meats. The meats are no problem since I have a good basic understanding of how to do it. the cheese on the other hand is tough to find out how to do it. I searched the web via google and came up with a bunch of crap and one good idea, but I know some of you guys have some experience with this sort of thing and well, I might as well ask.

I have a Masterbuilt 30" electric smoker. How would I go about smoking cheese? What wood is best? Temps? How long? What cheeses would be best?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Mel
 
Mel, Mel, Mel,
If you really want to learn how to smoke meats, cheeses, vegies, etc, you will join:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/f/

You will find a few of my threads mainly in the fish and cheese forums.

Here's some pics of me cold smoking various cheeses and butter (that's right baby! buttah!)

uhy7emyj.jpg

bu6u7ydy.jpg

uzymu6ug.jpg

de5y7u5y.jpg


Cold smoking cheese and butter means you do not use your smoker's source of heat, in your case the heating element. Chamber temp cannot go above 78-80 degrees especially if you are smoking butter. Cheeses can go a little higher. Yes, winter is the best time to cold smoke. Summer limits your cold smoking to only the wee hours, if you are lucky. Pepper Jack, Mozzarella are my two favorite with Mozzarella being #1 in my books. I normally use apple but have been known to add some alder in the mix.

Here's a post I did showing what I smoked and how I did it in my Masterbuilt propane smoker without using any gas. The 3rd pic shows the secret being a smoking cage filled with wood pellets. The only heat generated is from the smoldering pellets.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/149041/more-smoked-buttah-cheese


The smoker cage is from Amaze N Products. Here's a link to Todd's website.

http://www.amazenproducts.com/ProductDe ... e=AMNPS5X8


Craig

Tapayakin' from my iphone
 
Oh and speaking of smoking, here's what I am smoking today:
hu6yhumu.jpg



Tapayakin' from my iphone
 
Wow, I am not worthy! :nwort I do hope to someday be worthy though.

I like my new toy and it was awesome with the turkey. so much so we bought another one to put in the freezer.

I guess I have another forum to join and a lot to learn! I also have to figure out how to get the chips smoking and keep the temp down.

I saw a youtube video yesterday where the guy wrapped foil around a shelf and placed it tight above the heating element and then put a large pan of ice on it then the cheese on the top. He smoked it for 20 minutes at a higher temp and then shut the smoker off and left the door shut for 2 hours. He did this twice.

Your stuff looks so yummy!

Mel
 
Mel,
You do not want to use ice with cheese for the cheese will absorb the moisture from the ice. I smoke my cheese for 2-3 hours depending on what cheese I'm doing.

How to get the chips smoking? Didn't they smoke when you did the turkey? Are you placing the chip tray or skillet onto the heating element? That's what I do with both of my Big Chief electric smokers.

Remember though, for cheese it is a cold smoke.

Craig
 
I am going to have to wait on smoking the cheese or anything for that matter.

I opened up the replacement smoker since the one they sent first was damaged in shipping and this one was damaged worse. now they are out of stock....

I think Monday I will contact Masterbuilt and try dealing direct with them instead of Walmart online. I wish I had paid more for it at Sportsman's where I could have checked it out before leaving the store.

Sigh!

Mel
 
Mel,
You will find tons of info other Masterbuilt MES owners on the SMF forum have shared about their smokers. Also if you had one of the Amaze N products dust or pellet smoking cages, you can smoke cheese in a cardboard box. Yes, buying locally does have it's benefit.

Thermometers - Be sure to test the one on the door of your smoker. They are known to not be accurate. Boiling water is at 212*F. Test yours.

You will also want to get an additional one such as a Maverick ET-732 which is a wireless set up allowing you to work on your Mustang while the smoker is working out. Being a dual probe setup, you can watch the temp in both the chamber as well as the IT (internal temp) of the turkey, ham, butt or whatever you are smoking. It has limit setting to let you know when the bird reaches 165*

If you have an iphone, there is the igrill which turns your phone into a temp receiver.

So much to learn,,,,,,
 
Thanks Craig. I have been looking at the Maverick unit already for grilling. I have it on my Christmas list right now, so we will see what happens.

Today, Wow, Today is a balmy 6 degrees and everything is covered in snow. So, I wiped off the snow from my gas grill, got a disposable pan from our pantry and filled it with hickory chips. about 1/2 soaked and 1/2 not. I placed my soldering iron in it, which is brand new. I don't do much soldering, put the cheese on the top rack and a stick of butter and closed the lid. I plugged the soldering iron in and after about 1/2 hour I have nice smoke happening. I doubt the temp will get very hot due to snow, low outside temp and, well it is a soldering iron. I am watching it close though.

Then I got the body hammers out and put a bright light in my new damaged smoker and got the door to seal. Everything seams to work, so I will negotiate an even lower price to keep it and be done with the entire issue. When it stops working correctly I will pitch it. I will have hopefully learned enough to justify a really nice professional unit. Heck, I have some design ideas floating around in my head, maybe I might even build one. then I can incorporate a wood pizza oven and my gas grill and of course a charcoal grill as well. fire brick is awesome for most of it and the "mud" for the pizza oven can't be any tougher to do than stucco.

This new hobby seams to be pretty creative and unlike my cars, you can eat the end result! The down side is you really can't drive a wedge of Gouda!

:beer :yah :yah :thum :thum

Mel
 
Well, i thought I was being a smart guy! But........ :guns The soldering iron plastic handle melted! The cheese got about 3 hours of smoke. some of it that was close to the soldering iron got melty....They tasted good though. I like the fact you can eat your mistakes!

I guess it wasn't that great of an idea. I think some of the cheese didn't get much smoke at all.

I am going to smoke some rib eye steaks for dinner. I think I'll start them at 2ish for dinner at 5:30ish.

Hehehehe, lots to learn. I did join the forum Craig suggested, looks like some great info there!

Mel
 
Mel a lot of people recommend to vac-wrap the cheese for minimum of two weeks to let the smoke permeate and mellow out in the cheese better.
 
"cmayna" said:
I'd say 2months plus.
Click to expand...

Wow, Craig hadn't read that recommendation. I just did my first batch of cold smoked cheese a little over two weeks ago. Guess I'll wait a little longer before I try it.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
 
Some cheese will mellow out sooner that a couple months which also depends on what wood you use. I've tried it 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks later. Found the longer it sits in the fridge vacuum sealed the better it will taste. I go for a couple months.

The only down side is that you need to plan well in advance when you wait that long, just so you don't run out.
 
A lot has to do with trial and error method. For my traeger, I have to freeze the cheese in order to get the correct amount of smoke before it starts to melt. It was a PITA before I figured it out. Considering how cold it has been over the past week, I would not be worried about it but on my the ambient temp. plays a major role in smoking and BBQing for me.

BTW, a firefighter and his wife were in Austin, TX last week and went to Franklins BBQ. 2 hour wait and when they sell out the day is over. They give out tickets and they came away saying the best BBQ they have ever tasted.
 
"copasspupil" said:
A lot has to do with trial and error method. For my traeger, I have to freeze the cheese in order to get the correct amount of smoke before it starts to melt. It was a PITA before I figured it out. Considering how cold it has been over the past week, I would not be worried about it but on my the ambient temp. plays a major role in smoking and BBQing for me.

BTW, a firefighter and his wife were in Austin, TX last week and went to Franklins BBQ. 2 hour wait and when they sell out the day is over. They give out tickets and they came away saying the best BBQ they have ever tasted.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've heard Franklin's is really good, maybe one day I'll find out.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
 
"cmayna" said:
Some cheese will mellow out sooner that a couple months which also depends on what wood you use. I've tried it 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks later. Found the longer it sits in the fridge vacuum sealed the better it will taste. I go for a couple months.

The only down side is that you need to plan well in advance when you wait that long, just so you don't run out.
Click to expand...

Craig
I did some chedders med and sharp, Colby Jack, jalapeno Jack, and one other that slips my mind.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
 
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