I've been planning this for several days and almost ordered an A-Maze-N pellet smoker tray early enough in the week that it'd have been here by now. Wish I had because my pellet snake won't propagate it's fire. I have to open the Egg every ~30 minutes and light a new section of pellets with the torch. Not a big deal but it's enough that I'm sure I'll be buying a pellet smoking tray for future efforts.

The job is getting done.

How long to get smoke into the cheese? After the smoke, vacuum pack again and store in fridge or freeze?

jt2hunt said:

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How long to get smoke into the cheese? After the smoke, vacuum pack again and store in fridge or freeze?

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Like I said, this was my first go. What I've read is that you should vac bag and refrigerate for a couple weeks. The smoke moves in and improves as it ages. That's my plan.

Here's what I ended up with. I took it off about 9:30 (right at 9 hours, aka too long). It was tough to keep it smoking consistently because the fire wouldn't propagate through the pellets..

Lots of my friends buy a super cheap smoker and a dryer hose making it easier to cold smoke. Then your heat source (BGE) can run hotter and more consistent.

Wonder if i could take a dryer vent hose (aluminum) and run it from one green egg into another egg or box where the cheese would be?

jt2hunt said:

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Wonder if i could take a dryer vent hose (aluminum) and run it from one green egg into another egg or box where the cheese would be?

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For sure. You could even use a cardboard box.

Eggheadforum says do it with dryer ducting into a box. If you search the forum there are DIY pics of rigs people have made.

I have the A-Maze-N tray and have tried cold smoking cheese in my Primo several times, but it always seems to turn out a bit harsh. Doesn't seem to matter whether I use pellets or dust, how long I smoke it (never gone 9 hours though!!), or how long long I let it mellow. Thinking about trying the dryer vent bit with one end to the top of the Primo and the other run into the bottom of a cardboard box with the cheese inside.

Lots of info available about cold smoking salmon. It's pretty simple to do. Fire in one place and smoke piped to another.

Find something with lots of rack space so you can smoke in large batches.

Try a pellet smoke tube, I bet it would work nicely for cheese.

You've inspired me to go ahead and buy the pellet tube I've had in my Amazon wish list for months now.

I've thought about rigging up something with a dryer hose and my BGE to a large box. Figured that someone had done it before, but hadn't looked for examples. Seems like it would be pretty straight forward.

A common method is to use a dryer vent hose and a mailbox. Burn your wood in the mailbox and vent the smoke to your smoker.

I have smoked several rounds of cheese. Tips that have worked for me:

-A-Maze-N Tube smoker works wonders
-Fruit Woods impart the least harsh smoke, followed by Hickory.
-Vacuum Seal and don't touch for three weeks.
-Max of 4 hours imo for smoke penetration.
-Smoked Swiss sucks.
-I use a Lone Star Grillz Insulated cabinet because i want as much air volume as possible between my heat source and cheese. I often times add hotel pans of ice on the grates below my cheese to keep the temp low, maybe you can do this in a bowl on the place setter of an egg? Positive side effect, smoked ice for bloody mary's
-Keep grate temp in the 70's. Over 90 cheese begins to weep and sweat.

I had to go look for a pic

Last night I opened a bag of the aged cheddar and had a couple small slices just to see if I had totally screwed this up. This cheese had brokem some as i cut it originally making smaller pieces and more surface area so I had a control sample to go with the smoked bit.

It was pretty good. I wouldn't say it was harsh at all but it could use some time to mellow. The cheese went in the vacuum bag completely dry. When I went to put it back in the bag and reseal it there were some smokey liquid drops on the inside of the bag.

My exceptionally long smoke time was mostly due to the fact that I had to constantly re-light my pellets. I think I got a good 4 hours of smoke and 5 hours of little to no smoke. I think a pellet tube or maze will make this a more regular event. I'm unsure which to get though.

I took advantage of the (probably last) low temps to smoke another round of cheese. I did two blocks each of a sharp yellow cheddar and an aged white cheddar cut into a bunch of pieces to increase surface area and pace individual openings for use. Almost ten pounds total. Hopefully enough to hold us until ambient temps fall in October.

I've bought two smoke tubes since I started this thread. Several smokes done with them to date, including some salmon that I over cured and/or under rinsed, a batch of andouille (FANTASTIC!), and some other cheese smokes.

I bought two six inch tubes and they fit perfectly in the bottom of my large BGE. Light one and let it smoke for 1.5 hours and prep the other while the first burns out. Good setup and inexpensive.

I ran this smoke with both tubes in the BGE at the same time. It was an intense smoke output but it got hotter (80ish) than I'd rather it would have even with air temps in the 30's. I'll stick to using them one at a time in the future.

The aged cheddar and gruyere in the OP came out incredible after some aging in vac bags in the garage fridge. The sharp yellow cheddar was well worth the doing and we're still enjoying all of it.

Next winter is going to be one hell of a smoke show at casa normal.

Since you already have an egg, the amazen tube pellet smoker is the way to go set in the bottom of your egg.. I use cherry or apple wood pellets. Tray of ice sitting on my feet up plate setter. Grill grate and cheese on top of that. Smoke mine for 4 hours. I like gouda, cheddar, pepper jack. Foodsealer and then eat in about 4 or more weeks. I've been giving smoked cheese for 2 years now as Christmas presents. People seem to love it. Good luck

Tried smoked cheese for the first time. At buccees of all places. Now I want to try on my BGe but sucks I missed the colder weather. Come on cold front.