FedEx and UPS were good to me today

ponder · July 2014

Got them both delivered today, just in time to play with them a little before this weekends birthday party cook. Note: you can request that the receipt be e-mailed to you and no indication of the actual cost of the item be put in the package...that way when SWMBO opens the package before you get home from work, there is no smoking gun...worked for me anyway when I told them why I wanted it done that way

mshump · July 2014

Nice ! That Thermapen is a great investment. I was really against spending that kind of money for the Thermapen but the wife looked online at it and told me to get it, she really thought it was a great tool. Now that I got it I am glad I listened to her.

mcmac · July 2014

Thermapens really are a good investment as long as you enjoy cooking and will use them.

Pretty much everyone in my family now has a thermapen... once you experience the results its hard not to spring for one

ponder · July 2014

I am hoping that having these is going to make up for my lack of experience with the Egg to this point. If I can use them as a crutch while learning my Egg and produce a few really good results, I am hoping that eventually my wife will see the sense in my getting things like this. As far as her ever actually encouraging me to spend that kind of money...I seriously doubt it - You, sir, are a really lucky guy

nolaegghead · July 2014

Good decision on the Thermapen. You use them as often as you can, even between when you start and finish to get a feel for how fast something is cooking, and by stabbing it like lizzy bordon many times, how evenly it's cooking. You do this and you train yourself to form relationships between time and temperature and meat size, shape, age, species, fat content and other variables. The end game is you become more intuitive and you learn how to cook rather than learn how to "cook book".

ponder · July 2014

@nolaegghead‌ that's what I am hoping happens. It's what the plan is anyway. Cookbooks are a guide to getting started, but that's about all they are good for. On the other hand, $50 for a brisket tends to make you want to get it right while you're learning...and the Thermapen is something I have been wanting for a while. We also make cheese, and one of the biggest differences in types of cheese isn't so much what culture is used as it is what temp within a very narrow range you hold the curd at for how many minutes...often the difference is 5 degrees or less...the Thermapen is really going to be helpful there.

AR_Pork_Producer · July 2014

You will love the flame boss. Cruise control for your egg is as close as I can describe it.

HDumptyEsq · July 2014

@ponder. What kind of cheese to you make? Do you take it to a market?

I don't have a Thermapen, just an old digital probe and can't decide whether to get a controller. I've done overnights with just my medium and been OK.

ponder · July 2014

AR_Pork_Producer said:
You will love the flame boss. Cruise control for your egg is as close as I can describe it.

I really want that to be the case. If I can get it low enough to be able to hold a stainless steel pot with 2 gallons of farm fresh milk at a temp of 100 for an hour, it should be possible to use it for curd. If so, a smoked cheddar wheel is definitely in my future cooks. Even with it, I'm going to have to get a LOT more experienced with bringing the egg up to temp slowly, figuring out exactly how much lump and how big the fire needs to be to keep the temp under control.

ponder · July 2014

@HDumptyEsq‌ we make Gouda, Colby, Feta and Havarti mostly. Have also made Cheddar a couple times, but that one is a lot more involved and We really have to be in the mood to do it. We usually make it in small 3 to 5 pound wheels. Back when we raised dairy goats a couple years ago, we also made chèvre often. But we won't do that with store bought milk, and we have yet to find a producer in the area who has enough to sell that we feel does things the right way for us to trust the product - so that's on hold until we do. We also make our own yogurt and kefir from kefir grains we got from Ukraine. We make our cheeses and other things mostly for ourselves and for friends. Taking it to market would involve a big outlay in money to be able to sell it to the public, even at a farmers market due to the laws here in TN. We thought about it, but it just isn't feasible. As far as the overnights without the controller, from everything I have read on here from those more experienced with the Egg than I am (which is virtually everyone, including you

) it is definitely possible to do that. And while I am sure I will eventually get there, I don't want to risk a bunch of expensive cuts of meat learning. The controller is a crutch for inexperience for now. Possibly something I can use for other things later.

bettysnephew · July 2014

To maintain temperatures that low, you will likely have a much reduced charcoal load. Very small reducing ring (4-6"?) would be my guess. I have a 10" that I cut from a piece of scrap pipe at work that is about 4" deep and it works well for my uses. I have not tried to maintain temps that low with my FB but it has worked very well at everything I wanted to do. It makes overnight low and slows worry free unless the power would fail, but I suppose an ups or 12v battery would take care of that for a while if it were a dark and stormy night.

My experience has been to get the Egg close to the temp you desire manually and then put the FB on and let it do it's thing for a bit. Once it stabilizes it's protein time. I tried to put it on too early on my first cook and it took quite a while to get up to setpoint, but that is an issue you will encounter with all PID type controllers. Once it attained temp it was solid as a rock.

Good luck on the cheese making and keep us posted as to results

HDumptyEsq · July 2014

@ponder. That sounds great. It must be nice to be in your part of the state and live a bucolic lifestyle. I'm supposed to be retired, painting, writing and cooking - I'm busier that a 2 dollar floozie.

ponder · July 2014

@bettysnephew‌ Thanks for the tips! I had been thinking about the need to cut down the amount of lump to control the fire. At such low temps, I was considering taking my grinder to one of the old WalMart charcoal chimneys I have lying around and using that. If I ever am able to control it steadily at 95 to 100 ( which means I'll probably have to do it in the cooler months of the year given the heat and mugginess of Tennessee summers), and can reproduce it fairly regularly then I will definitely give cheese making on the Egg a try

bettysnephew · July 2014

With the thermal efficiency of the Egg, the diameter of the Weber chimney might provide too much burnable area to easily control at 100. I think it would be easier with a smaller diameter tube but then again I have never tried it. I do know that using my Amazing Smoker when smoking cheese will raise the temp in the XL even on cooler days. It takes some time, but it does go up. Perhaps you should just try to smoke cheese that you have already finished by your normal process to take some of the issues out of the equation to start.

Big_Green_Craig · July 2014

You are going to love that Thermapen. Good score!

ponder · July 2014

bettysnephew said:

With the thermal efficiency of the Egg, the diameter of the Weber chimney might provide too much burnable area to easily control at 100. I think it would be easier with a smaller diameter tube but then again I have never tried it. I do know that using my Amazing Smoker when smoking cheese will raise the temp in the XL even on cooler days. It takes some time, but it does go up. Perhaps you should just try to smoke cheese that you have already finished by your normal process to take some of the issues out of the equation to start.

I've tried smoking cheeses after the rind has set on them some, but the smoke doesn't penetrate very well. And when I've tried to do it before the rind has set, the heat rises to the point that the live cultures either die off or are their activity is so diminished that the "bad" bacteria are able to overwhelm them rather than the other way around, which is the essence of successful cheese making...it's why unpasteurized milk can be made into cheese that can be sold to the public after a certain period has passed...usually 6 months of aging...by then, any unhealthy bacteria that may be in the curd or milk have been killed off by the introduced "good" bacteria...if it doesn't happen that way, then you end up with bad cheese, and there's nothing nastier than rotten slimy cheese centers in a wheel that looks good from the outside. I have cold smoked them too, but again, it doesn't penetrate the entire wheel, only the outer portion. I figure if I can smoke the curd while it is setting, I have a better chance of a uniform taste and product...I suppose I could easily do it with an electric smoker, or even wood chips in foil on the burner of an old electric oven...but this is just about me wanting to try doing it on the egg if possible, rather than doing it the easy way ( or the smart way

). I would be very interested in hearing how you have smoked cheeses...did you make them yourself?

ponder · July 2014

HDumptyEsq said:

@ponder. That sounds great. It must be nice to be in your part of the state and live a bucolic lifestyle. I'm supposed to be retired, painting, writing and cooking - I'm busier that a 2 dollar floozie.

@HDumptyEsq‌ Honestly, I couldn't do all this without the missus...I work too much to even think about doing it alone. I have a full time job, a part time job, and a PRN job, as well as a once a month 16 hour day gig...AND I am an adjunct professor for graduate level students at the local university...so I know from busy. But I really couldn't be any other way...I am not the kind to sit still or be idle. If I ever did retire, I'd be like you...probably busier than when I was working

. And truth be told, we have had to give up on some of the things we want to do simply because of time...we no longer raise dairy goats or dairy cows, we haven't raised our own hogs ( although my wife keeps wanting to do it, so we'll probably be doing that next year), and we no longer raise ducks (never again...never ever ever again...nastiest damn thing on the planet, your average duck. HOGS are cleaner). We do raise lambs, chickens, turkeys and have a huge garden every year (110 tomato plants alone this time), we have an orchard and a vineyard, and I am lucky enough to walk about 100 yards from the house to go deer hunting and turkey hunting every year and be able to fill the freezer pretty regularly...and since we process it all ourselves, we can pretty much do it however we want to. Yeah, we are lucky to be able to do this, but it is a heck of a lot of work...I haven't had a vacation since 2006

HDumptyEsq · July 2014

@ponder. My hat's off to you. I didn't mean to demean your lifestyle. I know some smallholders in England and their lives aren't their own.

Your stuff is really interesting and innovative.

FWIW, I do smoked cheese and bacon in an old upright electric smoker (now stripped inside) and use an Amaz-n-Smoker. Search it on here for many posts.

After smoking cheese, vacuum wrap them for a week or two. The smoke flavor will sweeten and penetrate the cheese.

ponder · July 2014

HDumptyEsq said:

@ponder. My hat's off to you. I didn't mean to demean your lifestyle. I know some smallholders in England and their lives aren't their own.
Your stuff is really interesting and innovative.
FWIW, I do smoked cheese and bacon in an old upright electric smoker (now stripped inside) and use an Amaz-n-Smoker. Search it on here for many posts.
After smoking cheese, vacuum wrap them for a week or two. The smoke flavor will sweeten and penetrate the cheese.

@HDumptyEsq‌ Truly, I didn't take it that way at all

. And I appreciate the tip on the smoking cheeses. I will try that the next time we do it...I have an old electric smoker that is pretty much defunct except for the case...the heating element is just about shot...now I just have to google Amaz-N-Smoker

HDumptyEsq · July 2014

You won't regret it. It's the best and easiest cold smoking kit out there. I learned it from this forum. And it's not expensive - you can experiment with many different woods.

bettysnephew · July 2014

@ponder All of the cheese I have smoked has been relatively small wedges or blocks of commercially available cheese. Generally 1 pound or smaller. I have not tried smoking a wheel so cannot imagine what it would take to do so. The size of pieces I have done are then vacuum wrapped and let rest in the refrigerator to allow the smoke to mellow as right out of the smoker it is like licking an ashtray. I do not know if the smoke actually permeates the cheese while sitting in the refrigerator wrapped, but it does not have the licked ashtray taste after the rest which is at least 2 weeks and usually much longer. The more time it spends resting, it seems to mellow more. I do know from reading that much commercially available smoked cheese is processed with liquid smoke which would be a surface only application. It is often easy to spot as the outside of the cheese is very uniform with the "smoked" color which does not penetrate very far below the surface. When mine come out of the smoker after several hours there is not always a lot of color change, just a bit around the edges and not uniform in general. I may be doing something wrong, but everyone that has had some liked it.

FedEx and UPS were good to me today

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