Smoked cheese is as delicious as it sounds. You can add it to pretty much anything like burgers, pizza, or fries. You can also enjoy it on its own with a nice glass of wine. Most people think that smoked cheese is something you can only order in a fancy restaurant, but they are wrong. You can also smoke cheese on your own. You don’t need an expensive, fancy smoker. All you need is a grill and will to do it. You can smoke pretty much all kinds of cheeses. In this post, you will learn how to make smoked cheese.
We recommend using harder cheeses if you don’t want them to melt or slip under your grill. As the weather keeps getting colder, you probably don’t get to use your grill that often. Well, this is the perfect reason to fire it up again. Smoke some cheese and surprise your friends and family members. So if you want to learn to know how to smoke cheese, just keep on reading.
Get prepared :
If you want to learn how to smoke cheese then you came to the right place. We recommend you wait for a cooler day because the temperature of the grill shouldn’t go over 90 degrees F.
To start, choose the cheese you want to smoke. As we mentioned before, you can smoke pretty much all kinds of cheese. Buth the most-favored cheeses for smoking are gouda, cheddar, paper jack, and mozzarella. They are strong enough to endure the high temperatures and it will not melt. Unline other soft cheeses, they can also take in all the flavors beautifully. Buy a brick size slab of some of these cheeses and prepare yourself for smoking it.
Things you need to make a smoked cheese :
- A grill
- Some wood pallets
- A smoke tube
- Parchment paper
Choosing the right wood to use :
Choosing the right smoking wood is as important as choosing the right type of cheese. Different smoking woods go together with different cheeses. If you are smoking a softer cheese, we recommend using lighter woods like apple, cherry or pecan. If you are smoking a stronger cheese, then it’s better to combine it with hickory or oak wood.
Getting started and checking the temperature :
- Prepare your outdoor grill. Make sure it has an adequate ventilation system.
- You are not actually going to turn on your grill for this process, you just need it to hold the smoke around the cheese.
- Next make sure the temperature outside is not higher than 75 degrees F. If the weather is hotter than that, your cheese, whether hard or soft will probably melt.
How to Make a Delicious Smoked Cheese :
- Put the wood pellets of your choice in the smoke tube.
- Start by lighting up your smoker tube. Light those pellets on fire but be sure to extinguish the flame before you put the smoke tube in your smoker. After you light it up place it in your smoker.
- Make sure you place the cheese bricks in a way that they are not touching each other to have even smoked cheese.
- After you’ve done all that, close the lid and start smoking your cheese. The smoking process usually lasts about two hours or depending on how you want your cheese to taste. The smoking process is easy, the waiting part is the only problem.
TIPS :
- 1. Leave it for an hour if you want your cheese to have less flavor.
- 2. For an extra smoky flavor, leaving it for more than two hours is the optimal time for you.
IMPORTANT: We recommend reading the instructions left by the manufacturer before placing the smoker tube. Lighting different smoke tubes varies. The most common practice is using a heat gun.
The secret to a delicious smoked cheese is time.
- Remove the cheese from the grill once two hours have passed.
- And then take parchment paper and wrap the cheese in it.
- After that put it in the fridge. Leave it for 24 up to 48 hours.
- Once this time has passed remove the paper that you previously wrapped it in.
- Finally, vacuum seal your cheese and put it in the fridge once more.
Second round of smoking the cheese :
Yes, waiting is the key when smoking cheese. You have to give it another two hours of smoking the cheese after having the smoked cheese stayed in the fridge for 24 to 48 hours. The reason behind it is that you have to give it time for the smoke to reach every part of your cheese.
Finally, you can eat cheese. You can even melt it if you want to or put it with anything. The smokey flavor is good to mix your mac and cheese, or on your favorite burger. Whatever you choose to do, we guarantee that the results will be amazing. We are sure that after learning how to smoke cheese you will do this all the time.
Conclusion :
With the upcoming holidays, a piece of smoked cheese on the table can be a real treat. We hope that learning how to smoke cheese is something that will help you make your holiday dinners a lot tastier. You don’t have to spend huge amounts of money just to be able to eat in a restaurant or buy ready-made smoked cheese from the market. Preparing it at home is very easy.
It surely takes time to come up with the smoked cheese. But it will even taste better knowing that you made it yourself. The process may seem very complicated you may think, but actually it’s not. All you need is a grill, a smoke tube, parchment paper, and a deep fondness for cheese. And who doesn’t have that?
