Why not smoke your own cheese? It is fun, easy and adds a really nice flavor. Smoking cheese requires low temperatures. We are effectively cold smoking when smoking cheese. The reason for that is to avoid melting the cheese, while still allowing it to absorb the smoke flavor. When smoking cheese I tend to use fruit wood like pecan for its soft, almost nutty flavor. It goes well with various cheeses.
You can smoke various sorts of cheeses, like Cheddar, Swiss, Camembert et.c.
You can smoke cheese in a regular kettle, a ceramic grill, or a dedicated bbq smoker. Here’s how:
- Get yourself a small metal container. It could be a leftover tin can for chopped tomatoes, or a small aluminum pan, or something similar. If using a tin can, poke plenty of holes in the bottom, to let air in. Fill the metal container with hardwood charcoal or 3-4 briquettes.
- Light the charcoal/briquettes, and get a good fire going.
- Place the metal container in your grill, and add a handful of wood chips.
- Place the cheeses you want to smoke on the grate, close the lid and monitor the air temperature in the grill carefully.
The trick to successfully smoking cheese is to keep the temperature down, it should stay around 90° F, not higher. The temperature is kept down by using a very small fire in a small tin can or equivalent.
Smoke the cheese for 2 hours, then let it rest for 30 minutes. Wrap it in saran wrap and store in the fridge overnight. It needs a long time for the smoke flavor to ‘settle’, so wait with eating it until the day after if possible.