Thread: Sausage and Smoke Cooking

'Very Strong Flavor'----I take it such as in a smoke flavor If so is it supposed to mellow a lot with more storage? I know Charlie said he'd pulled some out that was months old.

I also picked up the smoking tube. Can't wait to give it a try--now if it would cool down a bit more so as to ensure that the inside of my smoker will stay very cool. The highs are supposed to be right at 50 degs F for the next few days. We still haven't gotten any snow, not even in the foot hills. I know the local ski resort got enough to open but this is a strange winter.

Yes strong smoke flavor on the outside. wasn't as much penetration as my last batch. Then I was running the proane and trying to keep the temp down and still make smoke.

This time I just put the tube on top of the wood chip tray and let it go. without any propane.

Your smoker is bigger and I wouldn't worry about 50'f ambient with this. It is 31'f here at the moment and slightly warmer when I started. I never saw the gauge in the door move from the 50 minimum that it shows. The bottom tray that was less than two inches higher than the tube got a little warm feeling to the touch. At least it wasn't cold to my bare hands.

I refilled the tube after 5 hr 45 min and it only had a few coals in the end.

Close to the 6 hr estimate.

I usually smoke my cheese for about 3 hours. I wait for a cold day (cold day for TX maybe in the 30s) I light the tube and do not light the propane or light charcoal. I let the cheese get to room temp before starting. I try to keep the whole shebang cool so the cheese does not sweat to much.

When I use it in my electric smoker to cold smoke I pull out the chip feeding tube a couple of inches so there is air input down near the bottom. If you run the smoke tube without enough air input it can make a creosote-y stinky smoke.

The last cheese I cold smoked I used my gas grill for the container. I sat the tube off to one side and put the cheese on the other and rotated the cheese every hour or so.

I got about a pound of Colby/Jack smoked the other day to try Cold Smoking it using this new gadget:



It's not the one that was posted before but it cost about 1/2 as much and while I'm not 'Cheap' I am 'Frugal'.

I was pleased with the quality and how heavy it was as it weighs right at 1/2 a pound. The one end is blocked off and had holes in the Stainless and it came with an 'S' hook but no instructions and I presumed that the hook was to snag the edge of the open end but that didn't seem like a workable idea so I drilled an 1/8" hole in the center of the side away from where the grid had been welded.

With that said I didn't use the hook this time. I just filled it with pellets, used my propane torch to get it started at the open end and once going, put it in the bottom of my smoker on it's side with a small flame going.

When I went to put the cheese in I noticed that the 'tube' wasn't putting out much smoke but actually had the flame still going so I blew it out and the smoke started right away.

I swear by my ThermoWorks Smoke Unit and I put the probe that's used to keep track of the smoker temp in and set my Upper Most Temp at 80 degs and started it. Within 30 minutes the alarm was going off showing that the internal temp was 135 degs! So I ran out to see if something was on fire or What!

The inside of the smoker felt cool so I got another probe but one that's used for keeping track of the internal temps and guess what??? The other probe had failed!

I finished my cheese smoking with the internal probe but ordered another external probe. It landed today and here's the pic to show the difference between the Old Probe's reading compared to the New Probe's reading---------



I'll post pics and a review of my smoked cheese in a couple of weeks.

Guess what I will be smoking this afternoon.

27.53 lbs so I think I have enough to experiment with.

Was $1.63 a lb so it was hard to pass up.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this comes out.

I've never had Asiago on it's own, only in a shredded mix but it's my understanding that it's similar to Parmesan but a bit 'nuttier'.

We will see. I read mixed reviews.

We went to a local discount food store this morning. Never know what you are going to find. Ended up with an 11 lb box of asparagus also.

Originally Posted by 32t

We will see. I read mixed reviews.

We went to a local discount food store this morning. Never know what you are going to find. Ended up with an 11 lb box of asparagus also.

If that asparagus came from Peru my father's turning over in his grave As I've posted Green Giant (who dad worked for for over 40 years) closed the world's largest asparagus processing plant (the plant processed more asparagus per hour than anywhere else in the world) where he worked and moved the operation to Peru and put so many people out of work.

Here in Walla Walla we too have access to 'Fresh' asparagus year round but I tend to only buy it when it's actually locally grown but with that said, I have been known to buy CA or Mexican grown asparagus when it's decent but that's a rarity as this time of year you usually only find 'Pencil Grass' meaning that it's the really small stalks which have higher Thread to Meat Ratio. I like the bigger (thumb size) as it has a higher Meat to Thread Ratio.

With all this said, I hope you and the family enjoy not only the cheese but that grass also.

I am sorry to say that when I look at the box it is from Peru.

How in the heck can they grow and ship it here for 90 cents a pound?

I am a little over an hour into the cheese smoke and I put the water tray in the bottom minus the water.

The other times I have smoked cheese I have had something like a salt pan in between the cheese and the smoke generator.I layed the generator diagonally in the bottom of the smoker and the cheese on the lowest shelf directly above the burning pellets is getting what looks to be over smoked.

My thinking is the pan will direct the smoke to the sides and up .

No worries about the Peru--Dad can't roll as he was the first in the family to ask to be burned to a crisp instead of being buried--

About the pricing--#1 they don't pay shit down there--#2 if they have more than they can sell at a profit then selling to get 'something' is better than nothing.

The year my dad retired Green Giant was contacted by a grower in California who had TWO MILLION POUNDS of asparagus in cold storage and more coming on by the minute. GG wouldn't buy the cold storage but did by fresh from the field for something like $0.15 DELIVERED to the Dayton Plant here in Washington State. Dad said it cost GG less than growing it themselves.

I too used a 'Diffuser' when I smoked the cheese, but I also use the same set up when I do smoked sausage but then it's to keep fat drippings from landing in my heat source and catch fire.

However I use the same setup on the bottom rack when I'm doing things like smoked salmon, jerky etc to keep the heat spread out/well at least that's my 'Theory'--

The picture shows the location of where I smoked the cheese. I figured not too high as heat rises and not too low as to keep it away from any heat.