In my last post I mentioned how much I’m enjoying the new wood pellet smoker/grill. Last month I learned about cold smoking. Cold smoking is a technique that can preserve food and add smoky flavors without cooking the food. Specifically, I wanted to create smoked cheese.
Of course, if you cook cheese, it melts. The wood pellet smoker grill cannot operate without creating heat, so you need to have another smoke source. There are external smoke generators that pump smoke into an enclosed vessel for smoking foods, but that was too elaborate for what I wanted to do.
The answer was a smoke tube for creating smoke from smoldering wood pellets. I used the Z Grills smoker grill as a place to concentrate the smoke and hold the cheese I wanted to smoke. The thing is, ideally you want to keep the temperature no higher than 80 to 90 degrees. Cooler is better. I smoked the cheese on cool mornings and after the first batch, was able to keep the temperature in the 80-degree range.
To do this, you fill the smoke tube with wood pellets and light it with a small torch. I used a kitchen torch intended for uses such as glazing the sugar topping on creme brulee. You need to keep the torch on the pellets for at least 30 seconds to make sure the pellets are well lit. Let it burn for at least five minutes with visible flame, then blow it out and it will continue to smolder. My tube will smolder and produce large amounts of smoke for five or six hours when filled.
Lit smoke tube
I removed the heat diffuser from the smoker/grill and placed the smoldering smoke tube in the bottom of the smoker/grill on the far left where the pellet feed is located. I put the grills back in place and placed the cheeses to the right side, near the chimney. My first attempt was a learning process and I learned a couple of things.
I used gouda and cheddar cheese. I placed the gouda to the far right on the main rack and also on the smaller second rack. Then I placed the cheddar more in the center portion of the racks. Cheddar has a higher melting point than gouda, so I thought it was safe to have it closer to the smoke tube which generates some heat.
It turned out the cheddar was overheated and also over-smoked. But it wasn’t all that bad. The gouda was very good. I watched a lot of YouTube cold smoking videos and tried to learn something from them. Everyone has their own take on how to do it and I tried to glean the best tips and combine them. Everyone agreed on one point – do not taste test the cheese right away. When it first comes out of the smoker, the flavor is harsh. It needs to be wrapped and aged in the refrigerator for a minimum of one week – two weeks is much better.
For my second round of smoked cheese, I added a step to the aging and also smoked the gouda first, then the cheddar as a second batch to keep all of the cheese on the far right – away from the smoke tube. I smoked each batch for two hours this time. I then wrapped each piece in butcher paper and put them in the refrigerator for 48 hours. Then I removed the butcher paper and wrapped each piece in plastic cling wrap and put the two batches in large zip lock bags to age for two more weeks. This looked much better.
Gouda wedges ready for the cold smokeAged smoked gouda wedge on top, cheddar bar below
I used cheese from Costco – a two-pound wedge of Dutch Tradition gouda and a two-pound block of Coastal cheddar. I made eight pieces of each for four-ounce packages. I made a third batch and Donna will add them to Christmas gift bags.
These are good quality cheeses from Costco at less than $7/pound. Smoked cheese costs more than double the price of plain cheese – plus it’s a fun process to make it yourself.
Here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, many of the snowbird residents went home for the Christmas holiday, so it’s a little quieter around here. Donna had her Christmas performance with the Viewpoint Concert Band Sunday night. They had a full house despite the missing snowbirds. Their next concert will be on January 19th.
Donna has been working with her Good Neighbors organization to provide Christmas meals and some gifts for residents of Viewpoint that do not have relatives nearby. I’m planning on making a double-smoked pineapple-bourbon glazed spiral ham and we will share it with neighbors.
We couldn’t ask for nicer weather – it’s been great. The forecast calls for daily highs in the mid-70s to 80 degrees from now until Christmas. With that, I’ll wish a Merry Christmas to all.
Christmas stockings hanging in the Arizona room/man-cave
We’ve decompressed from our Japan trip and things have reached a new normal for us here at Viewpoint. Donna has revised her activity schedule – the break made her realize how hard she had been pushing herself all summer long.
She has since put golf on hold until after the busy winter season here. She also resigned her position as President and Secretary of the Viewpoint Concert Band and bowed out of a tennis committee. She filed for and was granted non-profit corporation status for Viewpoint Good Neighbors, the volunteer organization she founded last fall. As the Executive Director, she still manages the day-to-day activities of organization but has delegated in-person visits to volunteers. Viewpoint Good Neighbors exists to assist mostly elderly members of the community that don’t have relatives nearby to help them. Good Neighbors provides limited meal service, household help and also can run errands for them and provide companionship. It’s a worthy endeavor and is funded through donations from others in the community. She still plays in the tennis league and also plays clarinet in the band.
At the beginning of November, I put a pork shoulder on the Traeger smoker/grill to make pulled pork. I was watching football in the Arizona room as the Traeger went about smoking the pork. I checked on it from time to time to make sure the temperature was in range and pellets were feeding. At one point, I looked out the glass slider and the carport was filled with smoke. I couldn’t even see the street!
I ran outside and found a disaster in the making. Something happened, either a pellet feed problem or a grease fire – flames were coming out of the grill vent and the pit temperature skyrocketed above 450 degrees. I used a squirt bottle filled with water to extinguish the flames and shut the unit down. Meanwhile a couple appeared through the smoke – they were driving by and thought our house was on fire.
After I had things calmed down, I restarted the Traeger and observed the pellet feed. It seemed to be working fine, but there was noise coming from the auger that feeds the pellets. The pork shoulder came out of the mess just fine and made a good batch of pulled pork. I started troubleshooting the Traeger and found the source of the noise to be the fan on the auger motor. There are two fans on the Traeger, one fans the fire pot to keep the pellets burning hot, the other cools the auger motor as it operates at high current and high load. That’s where the noise came from. A replacement auger motor (the fan is integrated with the drive motor) costs less than $30. The problem for me was the disassembly required to access the auger motor. It would take more time and effort than I was willing to do.
After nine years of reliable service, I decided to retire the Traeger. Donna posted it on her “Buy Nothing” Facebook group with a description of what was needed to bring it back to normal service. Several people wanted it. Donna ended up giving it to a nice young couple that had time to fix it and could afford to pay for a new motor, but couldn’t afford to buy a Traeger.
Now I needed a new smoker/grill. I did some research and found that technology had marched on since I purchased the Traeger. The biggest advancement came in the form of the controller that regulates the unit’s temperature. Older pellet smokers used a relatively crude method of regulation that used a duty cycle for control. The duty cycle selected set a certain amount of time the auger would turn (the duty part of the cycle) and a period of rest with no pellets fed. This duty cycle was adjustable to within a small range for each temperture setting in the upgraded controller I installed on the Traeger.
Newer, quality units use what engineers call a PID controller. This uses more sophisticated software to regulate the pit temperature. PID is an acronym for three algorithms used for control – Proportional, Integral and Derivative. This allows for much more precise control than duty cycle operation and the software is an adaption of that used in industrial and agricultural applications.
I ended up choosing a wood pellet smoker/grill made by Z Grills. This company originally made smoker/grills for other brands – in fact they made some of Traeger’s grills until around 2015. In 2017, they started making grills and distributing them under their own brand. Their PID software is advanced and regulates the temperature precisely by controlling the pellet feed to the burn pot and also varying the fan speed blowing air through the burn pot. It also incorporates two temperature probes that can be inserted into the meat to determine the internal temperature of the meat without opening the grill.
It came in a surprisingly compact box. Some assembly was required. I saw where people online claimed anywhere from one to three hours of assembly time. I figured I should be able to do it in two hours. I met that goal with some assistance at one point from Donna. The instructions warn that two people are needed for some steps. I only needed Donna’s help when I installed the legs.
Z Grill in operation with temperature probes in useController display and settings
I smoked a spatchcocked 11-pound turkey for Thanksgiving. I had a temperature probe in the meaty part of a thigh (P1) and another in the center of the breast (P2). I had already broken the unit in with the initial burn-in and a trial run with a spatchcock chicken. I did something new to me for the chicken and the turkey. I used a syringe to inject melted, unsalted butter into the breasts and thighs before smoking them. The outcome was delicious. After about 20 minutes of settling time after start up, the temperature remained true to the setting with only an occasional variation of just five degrees. Excellent performance!
Thanksgiving smoked spatchcock turkey
Near the end of the turkey cook, I turned it up to 375 degrees to crisp the skin. I took it off the grill when the breast read 163 degrees and the thigh was at about 185. I let the turkey rest for half an hour before I sliced it.
Donna made dinner plates for our next-door neighbors, Allen and Lois. They are in their mid-80s and Allen needs a knee replacement. He has a lot of trouble getting around and it’s been hard on Lois. She also made two plates for a Viewpoint Good Neighbors volunteer who spent the entire summer in the hospital fighting for her life. She and her husband greatly appreciated it! Viewpoint Good Neighbors delivered a total of 26 home- cooked meals to residents who might not otherwise had a Thanksgiving meal. Altogether, it was a very good Thanksgiving.
Before Thanksgiving, I got my rating with the Viewpoint Tennis Club. I wanted to play in league matches, but before you can join a team in the league, you need to have an official rating. This is done through arranged play of games observed by a professional tennis coach from outside of the park. I needed a minimum of a 2.5 rating to qualify for men’s league. I haven’t been playing tennis for very long – my first game was in April after four months of coaching and practice drills. I’m happy to report I was rated at 2.5. Whew! So, now I’m on the Viewpoint Men’s 2.5 Tennis Team and we play weekly matches in the East Valley Senior Tennis League (EVSTL). This has me committed to play three times per week – a team practice day of 90 minutes, a round robin day with 90 minutes of play and a EVSTL match either here at our courts or away at another tennis club participating in the league. Donna plays in the women’s 3.0 league. I’m also an official EVSTL score keeper for matches played here when my schedule allows.
Another thing I’ve taken up again post-Japan is guitar practice. I hadn’t picked up my guitars in many months. I just got away from it for some reason. It took a little while to build up callous on my fingertips and regain the dexterity, but I’m having fun again.
My guitars, amps and cabinets corner in the Arizona room
Donna is back to regular clarinet practice as we’re back in the concert band season.
Although I was unsuccessful in my search for Japanese straight razors in Japan, I’ve managed to acquire a few through auction sites and from members of the Badger and Blade forum. The stones I bought from Morihei are proving to be very good for finishing the edge on a razor.
My latest acquisition is the SanKan pictured above on the Morihei Oozuku mizu asagi stone. Japanese razor brands can be interesting. In the 1950s through the 1970s, many brands used names “borrowed” from German makers as German razors were highly regarded. I have one with a German name – Sonnal. The SanKan name is interesting – san (pronounced sahn) is Japanese for the number three. On the backside of the tang on this razor is a trademark stamping with three crowns arranged in a triangular fashion. The word okan means crowns in Japanese. So, SanKan seems to be these two words joined without the “O.” The kapton tape on the spine in the photo is there for protection while honing.
I started offering a knife sharpening service for people here at Viewpoint and have had several takers. I charge $5 for one knife, three or more are $4 each. I enjoy sharpening and it keeps me proficient. My knives and razors hold their edges really well and don’t need to be sharpened all that often. Some of the knives brought here for sharpening are completely dull or even chipped and damaged. I bought a couple of coarser stones to take care of these problem knives and it’s working out well. I don’t call a knife finished unless it will slice through an unsupported magazine page without catching and cleanly make thin slices through a tomato.
Donna has her raised garden bed replanted after harvesting the butternut squash that grew in late summer/fall. She’s planted cold weather crops – broccoli, spinach, cabbage, fennel, cilantro and dill. We went to the Arizona Worm Farm where she bought the starts and I bought 300 more worms to restock the bed. The hot, dry summer was hard on the worm population so I wanted to jump start the colony instead of waiting several weeks for them to re-populate.
We’ve had daily highs from the mid-70s to low 80s with one surprise rain squall last Thursday night. Friday morning I took Donna to the airport. She flew to San Diego for the weekend and her sister, Linda also flew in from Florida to celebrate their mother’s birthday. Donna’s been going to San Diego one weekend each month to visit her mom.
The weather ahead looks slighly cooler – lower 70s with some cloud cover. We’ll see if it includes precipitation. I think that just about catches up with all we’re doing. I’ll close with a dinner plate Donna made with an excellent pork chop with green beans and a cheesy potato pancake made with leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving.
