Cold smoked cheese had been a challenge that we really wanted to overcome. The first attempts were a failure until a hack was discovered that led to success. For starts the Alder sawdust just wouldn't stay lit in the smoke maze. The problem was fresh alder was used and the sawdust was just too wet to stay lit. We had made the sawdust using an electric hand planer from a freshly cut branches. We overcame the wet sawdust problem by putting the sawdust in a crockpot on low heat for about 8 hours. The crockpot method turned the sawdust powder dry. We double bagged the dried sawdust to keep it dry. Then, with the dried sawdust, the smoke maze was able to stay lit for 4 hours. We lit the smoke maze on both ends to produce more smoke. An observation during the process was the Texas Offset Smoker didn't have any draft to draw the smoke through the grill. It was suggested that the billowing smoke would be fine. Another tip was to heat the vent stack every 30 minutes to cause a small draft in the grill. Why did we roll with fresh sawdust and not a smoke tube with pellets? Family tradition has always smoked with fresh Alder. We have no idea what else is in them pellets. You can see we placed a tray of ice under the cheese which lasted for the entire process. The ambient temperature never really rose above about 60 degrees F that day, so the conditions were perfect. One piece of the Swiss Cheese was smoked for 1 hour the other 2 hours. This was per request of the Swiss cheese fan. The whole process has been a labor of love. After cold smoking the cheese we wrapped it with parchment paper. Then let the smoked cheese rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours. After the 24 hour wait we then vacuum sealed all the cheese and dated each block. It needs to rest in the vacuum sealed environment in the fridge for 2 weeks at least. Turns out it was delicious.
