SuperD's Cheese

[SuperDave]

I started my smoke this morning with high hopes that the Auber might be able to control the smoke temperature throughout the smoke.  This would not be the case.  I set the Auber to run at 80 degrees, loaded everything up and stepped back with my cup of coffee.  I watched the box temp probe register increasing temps from an ambient of 53 to up and past the 80 degree setting.  At 84, I turned the Auber off.  The temps still continued to rise to 87.  What I figured out was that the smoldering chips are putting off lots of their own heat.  With everything turned off, I've seemed to stabilize at the 87 degrees. 

 

[NDKoze]

Were you using the cold plate?

Did you have any ice in the smoker? A tray of ice with a foil covered top or frozen bottles of water would help too.

I have a feeling that the cold plate and ice is going to be necessary unless you are using an alternative smoke generator like the A-MAZE-N or something similar.

 

[SuperDave]

I had 15 lbs of ice and a home made baffle plate.  The first batch is out and in tact.  It was a little sweaty but had great color.  I've put the second batch in and it is performing much differently.  I moved the racks to different positions.  From the video linked on one of the other threads here, the guy said, "ice at the bottom rack and cheese on one of the upper racks."  This may have been a misinterpretation on my part or a comment specific to the small models.  On my tall unit, I've got a much bigger delta by putting the cheese as close to the ice as possible. 

 

[NDKoze]

Sounds like you made some good adjustments.

FYI, based on what I have read, it is important to let the sweat on the cheese evaporate rather than wiping it off before packaging.

I'm looking forward to seeing some pics.

 

[SuperDave]

Sounds like you made some good adjustments.

FYI, based on what I have read, it is important to let the sweat on the cheese evaporate rather than wiping it off before packaging.

I'm looking forward to seeing some pics.

I started to dab some sweat and saw that was a mistake right away.  The first batch pictures are a fubar.  The SD card wasn't 100% snapped into the camera so no first batch pics.  All I'll likely get is second batch final pics. 

 

[SuperDave]

Second batch is out.  This batch doesn't have quite as nice of color as the first batch.  There seemed to be more smoke production in the first batch. 

This was pretty much representative of my experience.  Smoker box temperatures were 86 - 88 and the cheese level temps seemed to be around 5 degrees lower than the box temp throughout.

Shot of how everything was loaded.

Cheese:

 

[SuperDave]

Okay, I couldn't take the suspense any longer.  I snuck a couple of samples and WOW!  Great smoky flavor for only 3 days into the rest.  I'll let it go some more and try again in a few days to see if there is an appreciable difference.

 

[tnlyne]

Those are some huge chunks of cheese. Where'd you find them that size?

 

[SuperDave]

I cut the Costco blocks into thirds.  Smart & Final had Monterey Jack in a 2 lbs block and I cut them in half.  I thought going big on the first attempt at cheese would provide a larger margin of error for heat and smoke absorption. 

 

[DivotMaker]

Dave, have you thought about adding another layer of your homemade heat shield?  It's a great idea (the original heat shield), but I wonder if a second layer might be the ticket to really low box temps.

 

[SuperDave]

Tony, I read a post you made somewhere questioning how smoke was supposed to get to the cheese if the cold plate blocked off the entire upper box (rack size).  I have that same question, so I left about 3/4" air gap around the edges.  My next move, I guess, could be to shut it off completely and see what happens. 

 

[SconnieQ]

Is that a potato trick I see? I've been trying to figure out how to rig up my ambient probe to be able to easily position it where I want. The rack wires are spaced too far apart for the clip that came with my Maverick. I've been trying to create a homemade version of a clip out of a crunched up piece of foil. Anybody have any other good tricks for positioning the probe? I assume the potato is far enough back so as not to interfere with the reading? Learn something new every day.

 

[DivotMaker]

Tony, I read a post you made somewhere questioning how smoke was supposed to get to the cheese if the cold plate blocked off the entire upper box (rack size).  I have that same question, so I left about 3/4" air gap around the edges.  My next move, I guess, could be to shut it off completely and see what happens.

I guess it doesn't take much of a gap for smoke to get through.  The cold smoke plate is as big as the shelves, but the smoke still gets through fine.

 

[tnlyne]

Is that a potato trick I see? I've been trying to figure out how to rig up my ambient probe to be able to easily position it where I want. The rack wires are spaced too far apart for the clip that came with my Maverick. I've been trying to create a homemade version of a clip out of a crunched up piece of foil. Anybody have any other good tricks for positioning the probe? I assume the potato is far enough back so as not to interfere with the reading? Learn something new every day.

When I had my maverick I just bent the clip further apart to fit the racks and it worked ok for me.

 

[SconnieQ]

When I had my maverick I just bent the clip further apart to fit the racks and it worked ok for me.

When I tried bending my clip, the two holes didn't line up properly and couldn't get the probe through both holes.

 

[NDKoze]

You put the probe through the holes and THEN bend the bottoms of the clip. The Maverick clips work just fine for me.

 

[tnlyne]

When I had my maverick I just bent the clip further apart to fit the racks and it worked ok for me.

When I tried bending my clip, the two holes didn't line up properly and couldn't get the probe through both holes.

I guess I had my probe in the clip before I started spreading it to fit the racks.

 

[SuperDave]

Small potato or a couple of radishes. 

 

[SconnieQ]

Oh, put the probe in, then bend the clips. I thought I was smarter than that. Thanks!!! (I still like the potato trick though...)

 

[SuperDave]

Did my 2 week cheese test today and wanted to eat ALL of it.  It rocks the house.  I liked it both trimmed and untrimmed.