The BBQ Guru and Caldera Smoker User Discussion Forums

[DHankins]

You have to love Smoked Cheese as a recipe. Nothing is simpler.

1. Cheese
   
2. Smoke
   
3. Time (to taste)
   

That's a trivial recipe. The hard part is in the directions. It's very easy to melt cheese over an open fire.

Before I owned a Guru, I did it manually. With a Guru, it's substantially easier to manage.

Since I document the method in those URLs, I will spare myself retyping it all here. In that last URL, you'll notice I did a few things odd, so I'll briefly explain them here.

First, I used a basket of ice to sit inbetween the fire and cheese. This creates a thermal buffer between the hot smoke and dangerously-close-to-melting cheese. You have to replenish this basket of ice every hour or so to keep the cheese temperature under the melting point. I picked up a circular 'fish grill' at a local Asian kitchen supply store, which stands on two legs that are just the right size for the ice basket. This is terribly useful. Set the cheese aside on those legs, empty the basket of water, refill with ice, reset the cheese back in the basket, return to the Egg.

Second, I wrapped the meat and smoker temperature probes together, and engaged ramp mode. This has the effect of turning the meat temperature dial into a smoke temperature dial. You will notice that the meat temperature dial will allow substantially lower temperatures than the smoker dial. In this way, I can keep the fire stoked to maintain a temperature of no more than 110F under the cheese. Too far over this, and you'll RUIN your perfectly good cheese. Don't make the baby cow cry.

Once the two probes are fastened together with a lump of aluminum foil, attach the lot onto the grill closest to the fire. You want the Guru to maintain a 110F fire temperature, so the ice in the basket can do its job to act as a thermal buffer and keep actual cheese temperatures closer to 80-90F (or so it is hoped, I never put a probe there to measure).


Why smoke cheese?

Cheese goes on just about anything you might 'grill' (rather than smoke). Hamburgers, hot dogs. Macaroni and cheese. Ok you don't grill that last one, but you don't smoke it either. By smoking the cheese, you can do your quick grilled foods (or your mac and cheese) with little or no smoke, and apply the smoke flavor when you add the sliced cheese.

And let me tell you, that was the best mac and cheese ever...made with a couple blocks of 4-hour apple smoked Hunter's Cabot.

Additionally, it's been a surprising discovery for me that cheese smoked in this manner lasts longer in the refrigerator than the varieties that are 'liquid smoked'. Usually it's only a couple months before molds start to grow on cheese in the fridge (and although most people throw cheese out at this point, I am the son of a Vermonter: I know the cheese underneath is fine and cut the moldy bits away and bag it in fresh ziploc...still this is wasted cheese...if you'd just eaten it before the mold grew). The smoked cheeses I've preserved in ziploc bags in our fridge? 6-8 months before a hint of mold develops. This greatly reduces the amount of wasted Vermont Gold.

I don't know if this is because the smoke deposits hinder growth somehow...too acid or base for the little critters to grow properly...or if being in the smoke bath dehydrates the surface of the cheese so again there's not much there to grow with. Perhaps it's a combination of both.

But it works.

OK, but why smoke your own?

As I mentioned in those links above, there's only one cheese worth eating: Cabot. If you disagree, you're wrong, end of argument. There are a few 'flavors' of Cabot you can find in stores that are smoked. Is it the right amount of smoke? Too much, to little? Was it the right wood? Apple not cherry? HIckory? As it turns out, the only one I can find here in San Jose is the 'Smoky Bacon' variety of Cabot, which isn't what I'm looking for personally.

The only way to get precisely the cheese you want with precisely the smoke flavor you want, is to smoke it yourself.
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"If you don't do it right the first time, you'll just have to do it again." -- J. Hankins, in a famous speech addressing his staff before yardwork.