What Would You Do? *Smoked Cream Cheese Help

WeberWho

I'm planning to bring smoked cream cheese tomorrow for our works Christmas potluck. I did the same last year and have requests to do it again. I've always smoked the cream cheese the night before and served at room temperature. It doesn't do the smoked cream cheese justice when it isn't warm. 

Here's my thoughts......

Do I smoke them tonight like I always have but reheat them in a roasting pan and serve warm this way? How does that work with reheating cream cheese twice?


Do I cold smoke the cream cheese tonight and cook in the roasting pan tomorrow? My only worry is cold smoking might be overpowering in flavor as I haven't done it this way prior and I have no idea what is too much or not enough smoke. 

Thoughts?

RRP

If the way you have done it before and it got raves then why mess with success? 

WeberWho

RRP said:

If the way you have done it before and it got raves then why mess with success? 

It's more or less letting my head get past it. It's me knowing how much better it is when served warm. When the cream cheese is served at room temperature it's in a solid state. When warm it's easier to scoop and serve. 

WeberWho

I did find a few threads online about cold smoking cream cheese. I also learned not too many people know there is a difference between hot smoking and cold smoking....

I'm leaning towards cold smoking at the moment. I'm just hoping I can warn cream cheese in a electric roasting pan and not melt it....

WeberWho

Cold smoking cream cheese. Here we go!!!

RRP

Now THAT is one helluva smoker! BTW now I'm wondering how many pounds of cream cheese are you smoking?

WeberWho

RRP said:

Now THAT is one helluva smoker! BTW now I'm wondering how many pounds of cream cheese are you smoking?

I had intentions of doing 6 bricks this evening with two of them going to my wife's work. I held off on the two going to my wife's work until next week. I could have done the four on the large BGE but too much of a hassle to clean everything out. (I'm using pecan wood chips, old soup can, and a soldering iron for the cold smoke setup.) So it was just easier to set everything up and cold smoke with the gravity feed smoker. 

WeberWho

^^^

WeberWho

Cold smoking the cream cheese was an overall success. I will go this way forward when serving it outside the house. I couldn't find any real useful information on cold smoking cream cheese. If someone somehow stumbles across this thread and is looking for a little bit more information I'd recommend about an hour max of cold smoking. I read a couple places that said 3 hours. That's too long in my opinion. I went a couple hours and that may have been too much. I didn't get a real strong smoke flavor when taking the cream cheese off but by the next morning it was much more apparent. I was fortunate that we have cold temps here in MN where I could remove the cover of the pan I brought them in and let them mellow until lunch in the truck of my bed. I was able to track down a toaster oven to warm the cream cheese before serving. I forgot the initial picture when setting it down and was too late before coworkers started going after it.