Cold smoking eggs – first attempt

Posted by louisa on Friday 3 September 2010 in cooking, smoking | 0 comments

Last week I mentioned in passing that I had another go at cold smoking using my fantastic cold smoke generator. We very much enjoyed the cheese so I wanted to do more of that – but I also wanted to try a couple of other things too, namely eggs and chillis.

Following the directions in my smoking book (Home Smoking and Curing by Keith Erlandson), a week or so earlier, I put some of our girls’ eggs aside to age (since super fresh eggs are rather difficult to peel) then hardboiled them to perfection even if I do say so myself. Then they went in my make-do smoke house, with the cheese and the chillis, and the CSG loaded up with some lovely smelling hickory.

Because I was distracted during the day (carrying 1.5tonnes of woodchips down to the chicken coop then by a comic-book-bringing visitor), I didn’t turn everything as dutifully as I did the first time. I think I first turned the eggs after about six hours – they were a peachy orange on the top side but surprisingly still white on the side facing the CSG and the remaining four hours. (The CSG runs for 10hrs, not the 12hrs recommended by the book, but I don’t think two extra hours would have made a lot of difference in this instance.)

The fun and the unfun

Posted by louisa on Friday 27 August 2010 in admin | 0 comments

I had a couple of days off this week – to do some fun stuff and some less than fun stuff.

First off, one with a picture illustration (even if it is just a quick phone camera snap), I added a quick-and-easy new perch to the chicken run and Blue took to it immediately.

I had my second day of smoking on Wednesday! More details soon but in the smoker this time was more cheese but more excitingly, eggs and chillis!

While that was brewing away, we carried about 1.5tonnes of wood chips down to replenish the chicken run. We carried it a dustbin full at a time, down 3.5 flights of steps – an exhausting 90mins! It was already breaking down so surprisingly warm and fragrant – the chickens were most perturbed by all the activity but seem to like it now (the pic above is before adding the woodchip, the ground is now covered to about the second rung of the ramp). That was one of the unfun things; the other unfun thing was spending all Thursday decorating our old house in our ongoing attempts to sell it. Unfun because I’d rather spend my decorating energy on our new house and I know that when someone does buy it, they’ll probably immediately paint over all our handiwork anyway. I did find an old signature under the wallpaper though – I think it says “P Joyce 1st November 1966” – pretty cool!

We finally went blackberrying on Tuesday evening – got 2.7kg before having to return home for dinner. I definitely need to make a foraging bag – even if it’s just the genius idea of a modified milk bottle on a belt. Two handed foraging would be far faster.

Said blackberries were supposed to become a jam on Tuesday evening but something came up and I can’t remember what. Then they were supposed to become a jam on Wednesday evening but I was too tired after the woodchipathon, and a friend came around for dinner anyway. So the blackberries are now in the freezer. I’ll have a jam/chutney day next week.

The next batch of blackberries we collect, probably this weekend, will be for a wine. John’s plum wine is bubbling away nicely.

Finally, not particularly a frugal thing but we had some of our double glazed windows replaced earlier today. Most of the units in the kitchen, study and bathroom had misted up over the years and generally made the place look scruffier than it was. At first I wasn’t bothered about having them replaced – since they still functioned as double-glazing for insulation if not actually as windows – but it’s only now we’ve had them replaced that we’ve realised quite how obscured they’d become and how much light they were blocking — they’re freakishly clear now! The guys that did it were great – and no nonsense. At the quote stage, I gave them the opportunity to upsell and they refused to take the bait, dismissing the more expensive glass as a gimmick. They were also nearly 50% cheaper than the first company’s initial quote. Anyway, I’m mentioning this because 1) just in case people don’t know it’s CONSIDERABLY cheaper and less wasteful to get just the glass units replaced rather than than the full (uPVC) frames etc and 2) I asked to keep all the smaller old units. They’re mostly misted up but will still be good for one project or another!

Cold smoking cheese – taste testing the first batch

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 3 August 2010 in cooking, smoking | 30 comments

My last post about cold smoking cheese left off when the cheese was coming out of the smoker. All the guides I read recommended leaving it to rest for the flavours to develop – at an absolute minimum overnight but ideally a least a week. So I wrapped up the smokey sticks in parchment paper, labelled them and into the fridge they went.

Occasionally, we’d take the packages out & sniff them but it was only today that we got to open them & dig in.

Let’s first remember what the cheeses looked like to start with. There was a Double Gloucester (the orange one), and two cheddars (a mature and extra mature).

And after the smoking, they looked like this. The left most batch was in for 3hours, the middle for 6hours and the right batch for 9.5hours. Check out the colour difference!

And so to the taste test…

Busy Sunday

Posted by louisa on Sunday 25 July 2010 in cooking, eating, growing | 0 comments

Today, I’ve:

• Built a cold-smoking cabinet/mini-smoke house
• Cursed the sun because just as I finished the latter, it came out and made it too hot to cold smoke cheese without it melting all over the place
• Cleaned out the chicken coop
• Hung out a load of washing, which, of course, caused the sun to go in
• Jumped for joy because the lack of sun meant I could start smoking
• Started smoking three types of cheese (more on this in another post)

Smoked cheese – my first attempt at cold smoking

Posted by louisa on Sunday 25 July 2010 in cooking, eating, smoking | 3 comments

I’ve been intrigued by the idea of curing & smoking food for a while but I only started to seriously consider doing it when Martin from Old Sleningford Farm mentioned a) how cheap cheddar can be transformed by a little time in a smoker and b) how easy it is to build a garden smokehouse.

About a month ago, I decided it would be a perfect project for this year’s birthday new fun craft/experience/skill and started reading into it in more detail. It’s a lot easier to build a hot smoker and there were a number of smokers-cum-bbqs on eBay – but that wouldn’t let me do cheese, and I like smoked cheese a lot. I thought I’d have to build a smoker with an external firebox, feeding the cooling smoke into the chamber via piping – and the thought of that overwhelmed me a little. Then by complete chance, I stumbled upon the ProQ Cold Smoke Generator.

The ProQ Cold Smoke Generator was only developed last year but it’s a wonderful combination of simplicity & genius. Obviously I’m new to smoking so I can’t compare it to other methods – but every other method I’ve read about was way more complicated that this. It’s a carefully (but not overly) engineered spiral of metal mesh. It doesn’t use gas or electricity – just a few seconds of a tealight to get started, then the sawdust smoulders away of its own accord for up to 10hrs, without any further intervention, stoking or encouragement. I think what finally won me over though was the instructions on the ProQ/Mac’s BBQ site showing how, with the CSG, you could make a smokehouse from a cardboard box, two bits of dowel, an old baking tray and some cooling racks. Recycling and frugal!