This guide on how to smoke cheese in a toaster oven is perfect if you do not have anything available for smoking like the usual way. It is easy but it can be tricky of the lack of smoke.
Toaster ovens are not meant for smoking as they only use convection heat.
That is why you need to resort to some tricks to produce the right environment for smoking cheese.
You can use some tools to produce smoke in the toaster oven or just cold smoke the cheese without the use of actual smoke coming from wood or wood pellets that you have.
Most of the time, toaster ovens just melt the cheese before you can get the texture that you want on the cheese.
That is why you need something to trick the cooking process in it.
The advantage of smoking cheese in a toaster oven is that you get to select many settings.
You can go with different modes on the toaster oven and see which one smokes the cheese best.
We will be talking about the different ways you can smoke cheese in your toaster oven for this post.
Follow and read on as we get to each of the techniques and tricks you can do.
How To Smoke Cheese In Toaster Oven?
Method 1-
Smoke Cheese Using Smoke Tube
This technique effectively gives the cheese a nice golden brown crust and a smoky flavor.
However, it can be messy and you need time to clean up the toast oven after.
Using a smoke tube in the toaster oven is also not advisable as it can leave a lasting smell or flavor inside.
So unless you use the toast oven only for this process, I suggest against it.
There are not many steps that you need for this process, and the cheese will finish smoking in a few hours.
Just prepare the toaster oven on your patio and get the smoke tube ready as well.
Step 1: Light Up The Smoke Tube
Fill up the smoke tube with pellets or wood chips and then use either a heat gun or cotton balls soaked in alcohol.
This is effective if you do not want any aftertaste from a firestarter.
These two techniques can easily light up the pellets in the smoke tube without adding any flavors or chemicals to the food.
The alcohol will simply evaporate once it is burned or lit up.
Make sure that the pellets catch fire before you stop firing them with the heat gun.
Once they do, let the fire go out and allow the smoke to produce a thick cloud for smoking the cheese.
Step 2: Smoke The Cheese
Once the smoke tube produces a lot of smoke, place it on the bottom rack of the toaster oven and then prepare the cheese on the upper rack. Keep track of the temperature as well.
You do not need to turn the toaster oven on as you will only need the smoke to finish the process.
If your toaster oven has vents, make sure to open them slightly to allow the smoke to escape.
If you have a surface thermometer, make sure that the temperature inside the toaster oven does not exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit so that that the cheese will not melt too easily.
Allow the cheese to smoke for at least an hour before checking the color.
The smoke might get in the way, so you need to open the toast oven to see if the cheese has gathered enough color.
If the heat goes up too high, then you should open the toaster oven for a little while to let it cool down.
Remove the cheese from the toaster oven once it reaches the color that you want.
It is all about cleaning the toaster oven and removing the smell of the smoke and the soot that gather on toaster oven walls.
Method 2-
Smoke Cheese using Ice ,Water, And Toaster Oven
This technique is a better choice if you do not want to mess up your toaster oven.
It is a cleaner way to smoke cheese in it, plus you do not get unpleasant odors from the smoke inside it.
All you need to do is prepare a pan with water on it.
You do not need to fill up the pan with water as you will need to add some ice later on in the process to keep the temperature in check.
Get some fruit extracts as well or any flavor that you want to put on your cheese.
This will be the main flavor you add to the cheese while you smoke it inside the toaster oven.
Step 1: Preheat The Toaster Oven
Put a few drops of the fruit extract that you have on the pan with water and then place the pan on the bottom rack of the toast oven.
Set the mode to broil and then preheat the toast oven.
You can set the toaster oven at any temperature and then leave it to preheat for at least 15 minutes with the door closed.
The water in the pan should start evaporating at high heat.
Once it does, prepare your cheese on another rack, preferably a mesh one to get all the vapor or smoke into the cheese.
\You get to allow the cheese to receive as much flavor as it can get.
Step 2: Smoke The Cheese
Once the water on the pan starts to evaporate, turn the toaster oven off and then let the insides cool down.
Once it reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit, place the cheese on the top rack.
If you think that the temperature is not going any lower, add some ice to the water.
This will help counter the hot water and create more vapor to add more flavor to the cheese on top.
After an hour, check the cheese if it has changed color from yellow to a golden brown.
If not, leave it in the toaster oven until it gets the color you want to put on it.
If the temperature of the toast oven goes too low and you still want to add more color and flavor to the cheese, then repeat the process of preheating the toaster oven without the cheese in it.
Letting The Cheese Rest
For both of the techniques we used here, you always need to make sure that you allow the cheese to rest before storing them.
You can do this by wrapping the cheese with parchment paper.
Let the cheese breathe a little by leaving an opening on the parchment paper.
Once it cools down, fold the parchment paper to seal the cheese and place it in the fridge.
This will last for up to two weeks, but if you want to get the best flavor from the smoked cheese, I recommend consuming it in the first week.
You will get the best flavor and texture from the cheese.
Conclusion
There are not a lot of ways to smoke cheese in a toaster oven.
The two mentioned above are completely different and experimental, so the results might differ on what toaster oven you use.
Both techniques are effective, but they do have their downsides.
The smoke tube technique can bring authentic smoke but it will make a mess and sometimes too tough to clean.
The water pan technique is pretty easy and clean, but it does not really put the smoke flavor into the cheese but instead, adds the flavor of whatever extract you use. So it is up to you to choose which you prefer.
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