The Cold Smoker

100% All natural cold smoking with local organic wood chips.

In 2015, Crooked Face Creamery received a grant from the Maine Department of Agriculture to expand our market for smoked cheese products. We worked exclusively with Maine Wood Heat Co., on designing and building an affordable, efficient, first of it’s kind, cold smoker that offered an all natural process for smoking artisanal cheese in large quantities. The fabrication of the smoker was an incredible success. The piece of equipment works perfectly, and exactly the way we intended it to.

This smoker has the capacity for smoking up to 24 five pound wheels of cheese at a time, and up to 150 rounds of fresh cheese. With vents at the top and bottom of the smoker, I have complete control over the air input and exhaust output. The auxiliary firing chamber ensures the fire to create the smoke does not heat the unit itself, and allows me to adjust the levels of smoke throughout the process without needing to open the unit. It is the most efficient system I could have asked for. Fresh cheese takes me an hour and a half to smoke, and aged cheeses take up to 6 hours to smoke. I’m currently experimenting with smoking 1 lb blocks of local artisan butter and other local cheeses as well.