[Cheese] Cheese Digest, Vol 19, Issue 10

[Joel Plutchak]

On Thu, 31 May 2007 lou02 at aapt.net.au wrote:
> I would be interested in the method that you use to smoke your cheddar as my
> hubby loves smoked cheese.

   Check online BBQ[*] forums, such as here:

     http://www.eaglequest.com/~bbq/faq2/21.html
     
The key is to keep a wood fire very low in a smoker or grill
(I use my weber kettle grill, covered, rather than my smoker)
with the heat as low as possible.  I put the cheese on a little 
altar in a cake pan containing a bunch of ice cubes to help keep
it cold.  If the heat gets too high the cheese can slough and
change texture, though it still tastes good.  I keep it in the
chamber for 2-3 hours, or until the fire completely dies out.
Oh, and I only smoke cheese in the winter here, where it often
gets below 0 degrees C.
   The nice thing about smoking cheese is that you can use
any old hard cheese, not necessarily homemade, so if you 
see a sale on cheap cheddar (or whatever) buy it and smoke it!

[*] I use the term BBQ in the American heartland/south
sense, not the Aussie sense, so low-heat slow-smoking
rather than high-heat direct-heat grilling.