[beerocd]

Not like it's a bad thing...

It ain't! Looks wonderful! Betcha it's good on rice or potatoes too!

Yeah, throwing it on top of rice tomorrow for lunch. Probably douse the pork with a little swad hot n spicy ketchup (runny stuff) just to change up the flavor a bit. Bet on american fries with onions it'd be good - guess that's almost a hash.

[tschmidlin]

Once it is done, I may try doing some cheese if I can get it cool enough.  Bought a big chunk each of gouda and aged cheddar to try with some cherry wood.

Let me know how the cheese turns out . . . I'll probably do some this week, my ProQ was here when I got back from Portland.

Speaking of the ProQ, I was a bit annoyed - they include a votive candle for starting it, which seems nice except it was a super cheap candle.  It was broken and crumbled, the wick had fallen out, crumbs of wax were ALL over the ProQ, and I sliced my finger on some rough edges when trying to brush the bits off.  In the end I just put the thing on the grill and cranked it up to about 500F for 15 minutes or so to burn off the wax.

Has anyone used one for hotter smoking, like 225F?  I figure you can just have it running in the box while your heat comes from another source.

[deepsouth]

well, this started out as a rib roast, but it was a pretty hectic weekend and i had to squeeze in homemade lasagna and a rib roast and decorate for halloween yesterday...   the lasagna was from scratch, straight down to the pasta.  my first time using semolina flour (boy did this make ALL THE DIFFERENCE in the WORLD)...  the rib roast turned into steaks....  seasoned the steaks with dizzy pig red eye express and sea salt & pepper.










the lasagna was not cooked on the egg, sorry....

[bluesman]

Tasty looking Q as usual.  The Lasagna is making me hungry right now. 

What's a good beer to serve with lasagna?

[deepsouth]

Tasty looking Q as usual.  The Lasagna is making me hungry right now. 

What's a good beer to serve with lasagna?

that's a good question....  sam adams oktoberfest was yesterday!

if i had my pick, i'd probably pick and amber ale or a pale ale.

[euge]

Certainly could go with a nice steak right now. I think something a little more bold like a porter or a dubbel would go well with the lasagna.

[beerocd]

What's a good beer to serve with lasagna?

Wine.

[nicneufeld]

What's a good beer to serve with lasagna?

Wine.

Have to agree...I'd like something big and rich like amarone, or...well, anything red, really!  However, I think for some reason I'd lean towards a saison in beer...maybe its because the last commercial beer I had was a Tank 7 from Boulevard that was particularly excellent, and that is colouring my opinion.  By the cold hard facts, it isn't a great pairing, but the complexity of this beer, which has a girth about it, but still remains light in many ways, makes it a perfect food pairing for so many dishes.  Hard to think of something that wouldn't go with a well-brewed, higher gravity saison.

[capozzoli]

Basement deggo red.

[tschmidlin]

So, I smoked my first cheese with the ProQ cold smoker tonight, roughly a pound of Tillamook cheddar.  It's a bit chilly here right now so the smoking happened at 53F, quite a bit colder than ideal.  After 3 hours of smoking with hickory dust the cheese has a very mild flavor.  I'm going to let it sit in the fridge for a day or so and taste it again.  It tastes good and everything, but the smoke is more mild than I'd like it.

I think if it had been warmer it would have softened the cheese and so it would have absorbed the smoke flavor better, but maybe I'm making that up.  Maybe the smoke box is too big for best results, I don't really know.

I'd post a pic, but it just looks like a couple of blocks of cheese.  No smoke marks or browning or anything like that.

[euge]

I think you'll have to do it longer at those temps.

[tschmidlin]

I'm sure you're right, this was just a quick test batch to see how it goes and I don't want to be up all night.  I want to have it nailed down by the beginning of November, so I'll be doing lots of tests.   Plus I'll do some during the day when it's warmer, that should help!

[bluesman]

I'm sure you're right, this was just a quick test batch to see how it goes and I don't want to be up all night.  I want to have it nailed down by the beginning of November, so I'll be doing lots of tests.  Plus I'll do some during the day when it's warmer, that should help!

Could you post pics next time?

I'm just curious to see your results...eventhough they're just blocks of cheese.  

[nicneufeld]

Funny, I smoked for about the same time (at even colder temps) and got great smoke flavor.  You're right, you likely won't see any coloration (its a coloring wash they put on smoked cheese commercially anyway).  I used very plain storebought yellow cheddar, I wonder if the consistency of the cheese affects it (ie., denser crumblier cheeses don't absorb as much as softer ones?)

[tschmidlin]

So that brown stuff that looks like grill marks is really just coloring?  That's good to know, I thought it might be smoke marks.

I'm guessing the texture of the cheese will affect it, but I haven't tested it, I only did the cheddar.  I'm not saying the smoke flavor is bad, just not as intense as I want it to be.  I'll have to see what other people think, and maybe compare it to some store bought smoked cheese.

And really blues, there's nothing to see, just some ~1x1x5 chunks of yellow cheddar.  But I can do some process picks next time, that might be more interesting.