Smoked Cheese: A How-to Guide
On January 17, 2023
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Smoked cheese is the perfect snack, sandwich addition, or flavor booster to pasta or soups. I’ll teach you how to smoke cheese so you can replicate this gourmet product at home!
Smoked Cheese
Smoked cheese is typically only seen at high-end grocers or specialty stores and it comes with a price tag. Luckily, if you’ve got any type of grill at home, you can easily recreate those expensive results over and over again with fantastic results. Plus, you get to have a lot of fun doing it!
Keep in mind that smoking your own cheese at home will take some extra materials or equipment, and there’s a bit of waiting/resting time involved. But if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you’ll end up with the most amazing, homemade smoked cheese around.
Materials Needed to Smoke Cheese
Here’s what you’ll need to smoke cheese:
- An outdoor grill. Any variety will do. You don’t need a super fancy or expensive grill to smoke cheese!
- A cool day. You do not want to be smoking this cheese when the temperature is hot outside. The internal temperature of your grill needs to stay well below 90 degrees F.
- A smoke tube. This will help you infuse your cheese with all that amazing smoky flavor.
- Wood pellets. As far as smoke, I prefer using mild wood varieties. My favorites are apple, cherry, maple, or pecan.
- Parchment paper.
- Vacuum sealer. This last item is not necessary but highly recommended to help your smoked cheese last as long as possible.
Best Cheese for Smoking
Feel free to choose your favorite cheese to smoke, though I do recommend hard or semi-hard cheeses for smoking. Soft cheeses have a tendency to take on too much smoke flavor, as well as giving you trouble keeping them from falling through your grill grates.
My favorites are a nice cheddar, hard mozzarella, pepper jack, and gouda. Any of these take on smoke beautifully. I recommend you purchase the large blocks and cut them down into 2-3 inch bricks. Once you feel confident with your technique and flavor profiles, you can branch into more expensive cheeses!
How to Smoke Cheese
Let’s get down to the entire process now, shall we? Here’s how to smoke cheese.
- Select a grill. Select an outdoor grill or smoker to smoke your cheese. You won’t be turning on your grill as a heat source, it’s simply acting as the vessel for holding your cheese and keeping the smoke flowing around it.
- Light the tube smoker. To make your grill into a cold smoker, light a tube smoker inside the grill. There are different sizes and varieties, but I find I get the most use out of this tube smoker because it lasts long enough but doesn’t take up a lot of space. Light the tube smoker according to the manufacturer’s instructions and place it in your smoker. Make sure the flame is extinguished and the smoke is rolling.
- Smoke. Arrange your cheese on the grates, making sure they aren’t touching on the sides and there is airflow around each piece of cheese. Close the lid and smoke for 1-2 hours.
- Refrigerate. Once your cheese is done smoking, remove it from the grill and wrap it in parchment or untreated butcher paper. Refrigerate for 24-48 hours.
- Vacuum seal the cheese. Remove the cheese from the paper and vacuum seal the cheese. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer, place it in a zip-top freezer bag and get out as much air as you can. Label and date the cheeses.
- Refrigerate for 2 weeks. Place your sealed bags in the fridge for 2 weeks. If you sampled some of your cheese right after smoking, you will taste really smoky, almost acrid, cheese. As it sits in the fridge, that smoke flavor will distribute throughout the cheese and mellow out significantly.
- Enjoy! After 2 weeks, your cheese will be lovely and ready to enjoy.
How Long to Smoke Cheese
There is no hard and fast rule for how long to smoke cheese. You can leave it on the smoke anywhere from 30 minutes to over 2 hours depending on how smoky you would like the final product.
If you want lighter smoke flavor, leave your cheese on the smoker for around 1 hour. Personally, I like to leave my cheese on for about 2 hours. I find that it takes on enough smoke flavor without becoming overwhelming.
More Smoked Cheese Recipes
Whether you’re looking for other smoked cheese recipes, or you need some inspiration on how to use this gorgeous, new smoked cheese coming off your smoker, check out a few suggestions below!
Smoked Cheese Recipe
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This post was originally published in December 2018. We recently updated it with more information and helpful tips. The recipe remains the same.
Smoked Cheese
Video
Ingredients
- 16 ounces block of cheese cut into small blocks
Instructions
- Select your grill. The grill for this smoked cheese isn't preheated, you're simply using it to cold smoke the cheese. Be sure to use a grill that has good ventilation and one that you can easily track the temperature inside the grill. You do not want the temperature to go above 90 degrees F.
- Light the tube smoker. Light the tube smoker according to the manufacturer’s instructions and place it in your smoker. Make sure the flame is extinguished and the smoke is rolling before you place the cheese on the grill.
- Smoke the cheese. Arrange the cheese on the grill grates. For best results, make sure they aren’t touching on the sides and there is airflow around each piece of cheese. Close the lid and smoke the cheese for about 1 hour for a lighter smoke flavor or 2 hours for a bolder smoke flavor.
- Wrap and refrigerate. Once the cheese is done smoking, remove it from the grill and wrap it in parchment paper or untreated butcher paper. Put it in the fridge for 24-48 hours.
- Seal tightly. Remove the cheese from the paper and vacuum seal it. If you do not have a vacuum seal, place the cheese in a zip-top bag and remove all the air before sealing tightly.
- Refrigerate and rest. Once the cheese is sealed, place it back in the fridge for 2 weeks to allow the smoke to distribute through the cheese and mellow.
- Enjoy. After that 2 week resting period, you're ready to open up that cheese and enjoy it however you please!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
We were given smoked cheese last year at Christmas, loved it. Just bought smoker and want too make my own.
If you are using a smoker is it necessary to use a smoking tube?
Not if you can keep the temperature of your smoker low enough. It’s really easy to accidentally melt your cheese so I recommend the smoke tube.
I recommend a tube or similar. Even the sun can get your smoker too warm. Especially if it has a black finish.
If you don’t want to take the time or trouble to order a smoke tube you can find containers at Lowes in their grill department that are primarily used for wood chips but pellets would work fine in them too.
I use my electric Bradley smoker. Turn oven heat off. Use just the smoke generator. Place a bowl of ice cubes with some water in the bottom. Keeps the temp around 90 degrees. 2 hours is good. Hard to let it season for two weeks but worth it. Much more uniform flavor.
Yes… Because a regular smoker will get to warm and the cheese will melt and drop through the grill grates where as a tube doesn’t get quite as hot. You still have to watch it though because even with a tube this can still happen, just not as severely as with a smoker.
What mesh did you put down on your grill so the cheese wasn’t directly on the rack?
Some smokers have these shelves available for making beef jerky. I believe that many use them for smoking vegetables also. They are handy. I’d look for jerky racks for the maker of your smoker or head to your most well stocked BBQ shoppe and see if they have jerky racks.
A non-stick grill mesh mat to top you BBQ’s/ smoker’s grill or even over a cooling rack works well, as it usually made of a material that does not transfer heat and keeps everything inside & it is easy clean up.
I use frog mats to smoke my cheese. Makes for easy clean up. I’ve had them for years. I think I got them off Amazon.b
We made this before thanksgiving and it was great! Our fridge took a few days to clear out the smoky smell after being in the parchment paper. What happens if we skip the parchment paper step and go straight to the foodsaver wrap? Or what do you think about storing in a cooler for the 24-48 hours? Thanks!
I would like to know this as well… The smell in my fridge is bordering on unbearable. Definitely going to have to invest in a minifridge just for this purpose
After a four hour smoke with any and all cheeses I wrap it with saran wrap write on the outside of their saran wrap with a marker date it. Place it in the fridge. I wait two weeks unwrap it then vacuum pack it. It don’t have smoke smell in the fridge
I have smoked cheese for four years now. I smoke 50 pounds cut into one pound blocks with apple and cherry wood. Smoke for four to five hours. I remove from smoker and allow to set for an hour or so. Then I double wrap each block in plastic wrap,refrigerate and let mellow out for 3-4 weeks. Double wrapping eliminates a great deal of the “smokey” smell. I have kept this cheese as long as 8 months in fridge and it is just as good as day one!
Been smoking cheese for years. I go directly from smoking to wrapping in saran wrap and into quart baggies. Delicious.
I vacuum seal my cheeses right away. Only thing I do before sealing is pat dry with a paper towel.
I’ve kept smoked cheese for a year this way and it is outstanding.
I vacuum seal mine the same day I smoke it and then leave in vacuum seal bag for 2weeks before We eat it. Turns out great! Need to let cheese sit about 1 hour before vacuum sealing.
Thank you guy’s for the information cold smoking
cheese. I have smoked white mild cheddar, Pepper Jack
Sharp cheddar and Monterey , I just tried the
first batch white cheddar and Pepper Jack. Because
I love heavy smoke flavor. I Smoked them for 6 hours.
NOTHING BUT PURE HEAVEN. Can’t wait to taste the
Sharp cheddar and Monterey in two weeks.
Where do you find these smoke tubes?
https://amzn.to/2HzNJQ2
Just an update to my previous posting. I have a property in Spain and picked up some cheap Maasdam (Dutch cheese similar to Edam), and some Entrepinares Curado. These have both been smoked and sampled and I have to say they are worth trying. I’ve done two batches, a two hour smoke and a four hour smoke. Both excellent but as earlier advice states, the two hour smoke is a lot milder. I prefer strong flavours but love both these. I used apple wood again but have some cherry wood to smoke a second batch. Will let you know how it goes.
I just left mine in the paper for two weeks and it was fine. Really great posting though. I’m now regularly cold smoking cheese at home now. Love it. And so do my friends. Can recommend this method.
Some sourses says that you should put a bit of water in any vessel inside smoker in order not to make cheese/meat too dry.
Any thoughts on that?
I do my first cold smoked chees tommorow 🙂
For this recipe I didn’t do that. They came out great!
I must say this is the first I’ve heard of wrapping the cheese in parchment paper before sealing for 2 weeks. I just took my cheese out of the paper and vacuum sealed it. It smells and looks fantastic! Can’t wait to see how it turns out in 2 weeks!!
Heck yeah! It’ll be great!
I just saw someone say they smoked cheese recently. It was the first time I had heard of doing it and I was looking for the method so this is perfect timing! This sounds like it would make great gifts around Christmas time!
It would make a fantastic gift!
Can you freeze cheese after 2 weeks in refrigerator?
Sure! You can freeze it for up to 6 months.