I used to cold-smoke cheese quite often in our smoker at work (yes, at WORK), but since I am in a different shop location now, I haven't done it in almost two years. We built an old charcoal smoker into an electric smoker and I make my own wood chips, I had a tried and true method down pat and it worked great. My fave was white extra sharp cheddar.....dammit my mouth is watering right now thinking about it... I like that pellet setup, Trundle......thanks for sharing your experience and those pictures!!
Oh man. Now you've got me thinking about extra sharp white cheddar. A guy I used to work with grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York. His parents would occasionally send out a big wheel of white cheddar that he'd share with us. It was the best cheese I've ever tasted.
wait til you try it smoked....oh good Heavens..... I buy it at the local store in 1lb blocks, cut it into quarters, and smoke it.....I like a slice of that smoked white cheddar on the sun-dried tomato/basil Triscuit crackers.....WOW...... dangit now I'm hankering some!!
I truly can't even imagine how good extra sharp white cheddar would be smoked. It sounds almost too good to be true. Oh, and I like how you just threw in the "I buy it at the local store" line knowing full well that I don't have a source for quality cheese where I live . Serious question for anyone. Is there a online source for great cheese? Probably be pretty spendy for shipping but I'd pay it to have the occasional treat. Now I'm seriously jonesing for some extra sharp white cheddar...thanks Scotty!
Ok, I answered my own question. Looks like there are quite a few options online for buying cheese, although as I suspected, the shipping is pretty crazy. Regardless, I'm gonna pull the trigger on a couple pounds of really good extra sharp white cheddar. My wallet wishes Scotty had never chimed in on this thread.
You said you have a Costco nearby in Missoula right? I would check with them about ordering stuff that they carry it might save you a chunk of $ on shipping http://www.costco.com/CatalogSearch?storeId=10301&catalogId=10701&langId=-1&keyword=cheese
Great idea! This is most likely the way to go. I'll be heading down that way in a couple weeks so I'll give 'em a call and see what they can do. They usually have a few blocks of high quality cheeses anyway. Why didn't I think of this?
That would be delicious. One of the little projects I want to get done this summer is to build a little stone pizza oven. Still have to research some designs, but I've got a limitless supply of nice flat flagstone on my property. Should be able to come up with something. Oh, and thanks.
devilsbrew. I'll take a pic of the flagstone later this afternoon when I take my dog for a walk up the hill. If you guys see what I have to work with, maybe you can make a few suggestions for how to complete the project.
Forgot to bring my camera for the dog walk yesterday, but got a few pics of some flagstone around my house that is representative of what I'll be using to build a pizza oven out of. This first one is just a big flat rock in front of my house. This next one is the rock wall in front of the house. Here's a pic of just a random piece. Probably 3" thick or so. I figure I'll use stuff like this for the side walls and "roof". So that's my plan. Probably gonna start throwing it together in the next few weeks. I'll get a pic of the rock pit area when I go back up there. Literally a endless supply of flagstone. Just for fun, here's a pic of my neighbor's sign at the bottom of his driveway. Glad I'm good friends with him.
Thanks DB I got bored one night and decided to make a mini rocket stove out of my beer cans. It worked pretty good for a couple minutes then the aluminum burned up.
Well, back to the drawing board. I talked to my neighbor and mentioned my pizza oven idea. He informed me that the flagstone up here isn't heat resistant enough to take the heat necessary for a good pizza oven. It'll crack and split too easily. I think I'll just keep my eye on craigslist and hopefully come across some clay bricks on the cheap.
