We bought beautiful, wood-smoked cheese from Orsom cheesemaker at Carfest last year and loved it so much we thought we'd give it a go ourselves! Most smoked cheeses that you buy from the supermarket are "smoke-flavoured" with chemical flavourings but the Orsom cheese was made the old fashioned way and you could really taste the difference!
First, we made our own smoker from a brand new soldering iron an empty baked bean tin with a hole in the side, near the bottom. We emptied the BGE of all ash & charcoal. We then placed the can in the centre of the base with out the fire pit base grid on and put the soldering iron through the vent door into the hole in the can. We closed the bottom vent mesh door to hold the soldering iron in place.
We soaked some hickory wood chips and then filled the bean can with them.
We placed the stainless steel griddle direct over the fire pit with the smoker beneath. we placed the pieces of cheddar resting between two long wooden skewers to allow maximum smoke circulation, turned on the soldering iron and closed the lid. The daisy wheel lid closed with the holes fully open.
The smoke took about 30 minutes to build up with the lid closed and, five hours later, the cheese was ready for wrapping...
We used kitchen towel to blot the cheese, as it had sweated during the smoking process and wrapped it in greaseproof paper and placed it in the fridge for one week to mature and absorb the smokey flavour before finally trying it.
A week later....the moment of truth....absolutely delicious, creamy, smooth, smokey flavour with a gorgeous nutty flavour. Great with crusty bread, a selection of other cheeses and pickles for a ploughman's lunch.
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