You've smoked brisket, ribs, and chicken, but have you ever tried smoking dairy? No, not a gallon of milk; I mean a hunk of cheese! Delicious and creamy, smoked cheese is the perfect snack, burger topping, and secret to delicious pasta dishes. It's also the hottest trend on TikTok at the moment.
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Pit master Tom of SotaSmokeBBQ does it best with their informative video sharing how simple cold smoking cheese really is. Known for their smoking and BBQ content (including a recipe for Elote Pizza!), Pitmaster Tom knows his way around the smoker, providing simple steps that even a novice could follow.
@sotasmokebbq Cold Smoked Cheese! #sotasmokebbq #cheese
How To Cold Smoke Cheese
Unlike smoking meat which uses hot smoke to cook and smoke the protein, smoking cheese uses a cold smoke technique to add the smoke flavor to the cheese without making it melt. Because of this, type of cheeses with a high melting point (swiss, gouda, cheddar, pepper jack, brie, mozzarella) are great for cold smoking, and have a hickory taste to it. In the video Tom unwraps a few different kinds of cheddar, which ultimately can be melted on macaroni and cheese.
Along with cheese, other uses for cold smoke can flavor food like tofu, fish, nuts, vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, olive oil, and garlic.
Unlike hot smoking which requires a smoker, cold smoking only requires a cold smoker kit or tube smoker. Simply add the cold smoker kit or tube smoker to your grill, fill it with wood pellets, light it up, wait a few minutes (5 according to pit master Tom), then blow it out. Smoke will emit from the tube, flavoring your cheese in a matter of hours.
Cheese Smoking Tips:
- Smoke cheese on a cold day! Pit master Tom smokes his cheese in the winter while snow is still on the ground.
- Before working through this cheese recipe for cold smoking cheese, have the blocks of cheese sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes so the oils come to the surface area. It'll infuse more smoky flavor this way!
- After 2-3 hours remove the cold-smoked cheese from the grill grate and bring it indoors. Wrap it in plastic wrap (or vacuum-seal) and let chill in the refrigerator for seven days for the flavors to infuse deep inside of the cheese.
- While it might be hard to resist, these cheese blocks are well worth the wait and the flavor will penetrate the entire cheese.
