Big Green Egg

What follows is my method for smoking cheese on the Big Green Egg. As a kid I always liked smoked cheese, there’s something about the smokey flavor combined with your favorite cheese. I do want to warn you ahead of time but once you finish smoking the cheese you will need to let it sit and cure for 2 weeks in the refrigerator. I’m just letting you know ahead of time because I know it was hard for me not to cut right into the freshly smoked cheese but trust me it is well worth the wait! The key to smoking cheese is to use the cold smoking method and keep the temperature inside your grill as low as possible while still creating a good amount of smoke. I’ll teach you how to cold smoke cheese and you’ll have friends and family asking you to smoke them some cheese.

Here’s what you’ll need to start smoking cheese:

Best Cheese for Smoking

I’ve cold smoked many different kinds of cheese from brie to cheddar to pepper jack. The best cheese for smoking is cheddar, Monterey jack, or pepper jack. I prefer to use the 32 oz blocks, I usually cut them into 3 pieces. This makes decent size chunks that are easy to consume, and will also help when you get to the latter stage of this process and need to vacuum seal the cheese.

Smoking string cheese is another good cheese to use when starting out. Buy yourself the 12 pack and unwrap the pieces. String cheese is highly recommended because they are they are porous enough to accept the smoke. Plus smoked mozzarella is great!

How to Smoke Cheese

The next steps will lay out how to smoke cheese using a large Big Green Egg. I start with an empty chamber (no charcoal). I place the plate setter legs down inside the egg. Take the A-Maze-N pellet device and fill with applewood pellets. Place the A-Maze-N smoker in the middle of the (upside down) plate setter. Grab your torch, light it, and place it at the end of the A-Maze-N smoker.

Setting the smoker up with pellets:	Using the torch to light the pellets:

Starting the fire:

Depending on your torch you will want to burn the pellets for a few minutes so that there is a decent fire going in the pellets. Let the pellets burn for about 10 minutes to ensure a good coal base has been started. Using thermal gloves (like a Pitt Mitt), grab the non-burning side of A-Maze-N, with the other hand remove the plate setter and then pace the A-Maze-N in the bottom of the Big Green Egg. Then put the plate setter in the Big Green Egg, legs up.

Now we’re cooking!

In terms of the ventilation on the egg, close the lower vent to about an inch or less open. Put the daisy wheel on top of the egg and turn the wheel so the vent holes are about 1/3rd open. The goal here is to prevent is too much air flow through the chamber and the pellets catching fire. If the heat inside the egg gets over 100 degrees the cheese will start to melt. I’ve had this happen to me, the air flow was too great and the pellets caught fire and I had no idea until I lifted the top of the egg to find really soft blobs of cheese. The next step in learning how to smoke cheese is figuring out how long to cold smoke cheese.

How Long to Cold Smoke Cheese

In terms of how long to cold smoke the cheese, there’s no single answer for everyone. I live in Arizona so my temperature outside my Egg is frequently at 100 degrees before I even get started smoking. Very often when I’m smoking cheese, regardless of the season, I will usually smoke the cheese for 90 minutes to 2 hours. I will check the grill every 20 minutes to verify the temperature and ensure there haven’t been any pellet flare-ups. While there is some science involved, I’ve found that smoking cheese is mostly an art form. You will end up with melted or soft cheese, it is just part of the learning process, don’t get discouraged. If you’re lucky you will end up with cheese that looks like this when you’re done:

You’ll notice that I use a tiered rack and frog mats on the grates. The tiered rack allows you to smoke more cheese in one batch. Frog mats have been lifesavers when smoking cheese, they are coated so they won’t get ruined by the cheese and if you happen to melt some cheese, they clean off really easily. I highly recommend you get some frog mats as they also help keep the cheese off your greasy grates. I have a frog mat on the second tier and just used scissors to cut out a hole for the tiered rack center spindle, very easy to do and doesn’t damage the frog mats.

Finishing the Smoked Cheese: Vacuum Seal

As I mentioned at the outset of this tutorial, the most important part of this process is patience — you must have the patience to wait for 2 weeks for your cheese to cure. As a learning lesson, for the first time you smoke cheese, please cut a small bit off one of the blocks and eat it. Oddly enough it will taste like an ashtray. Now you’ll understand why we need to let the cheese cure for two weeks.

Pro tip: Remove the cheese from the Egg and place on a plate or cutting board. Whatever you do, resist the urge to put the cheese in the refrigerator to cool down. The smoke from the cheese will get into your fridge air filtration system and it will smell smokey for at least the next two weeks.

The last step in this process is to vacuum seal the cheese and let it sit for two weeks. I recommend that you write the date you smoked the cheese on the vacuum sealed package, it is much easier to know when the two weeks is up that way.

Cheese waiting to be vacuum sealed:

The finished smoked cheese product:

I hope you found this smoking cheese tutorial for the Big Green Egg helpful, let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

Disclosure: If there is a product that I like and it has an affiliate program, then I might link to that product using an affiliate link. By using an affiliate link it means that I might earn a commission on a product if you buy something through that link. This doesn’t cost you anything but I just wanted you to be aware.

The design of the Big Green Egg allows for perfect air flow to be able to control the temperature. The door at the bottom allows you full control over the amount of air going into the Egg and through the coals. The variable “daisy wheel” on the top allows you a full range of options when controlling how much air flow goes through the chamber and escapes the Egg. All the while, the ceramic Egg is perfectly radiating even heat onto the grate surface where you put the food. Below, I’ve explained my system for controlling the temperature at different levels for when we cook pizza, grill a steak, or smoke ribs or even cheese! What follows are general tips I have for developed for regulating & controlling the Big Green Egg temperature.

Have you read my tutorial on smoking cheese with the Big Green Egg?

Understanding the Basics of the Big Green Lighting Charcoal

In my opinion, the Big Green Egg has three functions: 1) Grill / Cook, 2) Smoke, 3) Bake. In my experience, I find that I use different amounts of charcoal for each of the 3 functions.

For Grilling and Baking, I fill the charcoal chamber to about 3/4 full to the break line between the two pieces of the BGE. If I’m going to sear and grill a couple of steaks, I might put in a little more charcoal and get the Egg nice and hot. When I bake Papa Murphy’s pizza (Large Pizza works great!), I put in a little less than 3/4 full because I don’t need as much.

Finally, for smoking it depends on the smoke. If I’m going to be smoking a pork shoulder for 10+ hours then I’ll be filling up the chamber. You will really need to work on your temperature control because if you have too much lump and it gets too hot, then it’ll be hard to get the dome temperature (the temperature inside the dome at the top) down because the ceramic is now quite hot. Compared to a Weber Grill, or Weber Smokey Mountain, the Big Green Egg uses much, much less charcoal. First off you use lump charcoal, and second, when you are done using the Egg, you close up the grill and that seals things pretty well to snuff out the coals. By doing this, you can simply add a few pieces of charcoal to the chamber the next time you grill.

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Lighting the Big Green Egg

Here are a couple of tips for lighting the Big Green Egg. It’s important that you need to know where in the chamber to light the charcoal. If you are going to be cooking at high temperature (steaks, burgers, etc.) you want to light the charcoal in the middle because you want the hottest part in the middle. If you are using the Egg as a smoker I recommend just starting the coals in the back half.

Personally, I use the Big Green Egg brand fire starters, and I put one of those in the midst of the charcoal and light it and keep the lid open for about 5 minutes. Once you can see that the charcoal has started to get a little orange in the firebox and is lit then shut the lid. You will need to add the daisy wheel or Smokeware cap on top very soon but you want to let the fire start to burn and heat up the egg.

I will usually let the grill continue as-is for another 5 minutes or so. You do want to balance the coals heating up with them getting too hot. This is a skill that you will eventually master but does take time. Remember, it is always easier to increase temperature than it is to reduce. Once the egg gets hot it is nearly impossible to get the temperature down in a short period of time.

Tip: When cooking at high temps beware of the back flash of heat when you open the Egg. Always “burp” the Egg by opening the lid an inch or two to allow it to breathe. You need to get a Pit Mitt because of the heat, trust me. I own a Pit Mitt for opening the egg and silicone gloves as well:

Controlling Big Green Egg Temperature

One of the most important things you do with the Green Egg is controlling and regulating the temperature. Now here’s where things can get tricky but since the air flow through the Egg is fully customizable you’ll figure out the right system that works for you.

I start with nothing on the top vent of the egg and the bottom vent wide open. We’ll control the temperature with the daisy wheel or different accessory like the Smokeware stainless steel cap. I use the Smokeware cap because it gives me greater control over the temperature. One of the things with the daisy wheel is that sometimes when you open the egg you lose the settings, the wheel slide from time to time. Because you have the bottom vent wide open you will want to make sure that the charcoal doesn’t get too hot prior to shutting the lid and putting on the daisy wheel or cap. It’s always easier to raise the temperature than it is to bring it down. Using the top vent to control the temperature allows you the ability to refine and fine-tune the temperature much more easily. By the way, if I had to choose one thing that really improved my cooks on the Egg it would be the Smokeware cap.

Depending on conditions, once I get the egg close to my desired temp I can usually maintain a level temp with the daisy wheel set like this:

Tip: Here’s a tip for the daisy wheel, you probably know this already but in case you don’t, looking at the picture above, position the daisy wheel so the raised letters (Big Green Egg) is at 12 o’clock. The bottom vent slider will stay put when you open the lid because it hits the raised letters of the writing. On my first cook, I didn’t realize this and the sliders had slid open and cause the charcoals to get really hot and almost burn my steaks.

Now from here, the Big Green Egg should keep a consistent temperature. If you need to adjust the temperature slightly (25 to 50 degrees) I usually use different combinations of the daisy wheel sliders. If the temperature is getting too high on you then you can close the bottom door. It is really just science, the more air you have flowing through the egg, the bigger the fire you’ll get.

If I have one suggestion when using the Egg as a smoker, bring the heat up slowly but yet completely. I had one smoke that ran about 350 degrees because I had gotten the Big Green Egg too hot and there was no turning back. I recommend you get a laser thermometer, I use this to get the actual temperature of the grate or grill grate over the plate setter. The laser thermometer is a must-have if you plan on cooking pizza on the BGE so you can get an accurate temperature reading of the pizza cooking stone.

That’s my system for lighting and controlling the Big Green Egg temperature for the 3 different functions. I hope you found this tutorial helpful and if you did, please share it! Let me know in the comments if you have a different system.

Do you own a Weber grill? Check out my review of the Smokenator?