Smoking Cheese on my Hasty-Bake Gourmet

I smoked a little over 28 pounds of cheese on my Hasty-Bake Gourmet and it came out great. 

This is the cheese I started with for this smoke. I had some Cheddar, Sharp Cheddar, Swiss, Colby Jack, Gouda, Farmers Cheese, Dubliner, and my favorite which is the "Three Alarm" Cheese.

Prepping the cheese for smoking.

This 28.37 pounds is about all I can fit in the cooker.

I have a pan of ice under my cheese to help hold the temperature that I want to run in the cooker for this treat. Never over 80 degrees in the cooker for the best results.

My fire was 5 all hardwood briquets with a piece of hickory over it for my smoke.

My Gourmet just doing it's thing on this cool morning.

Just out of my Hasty-Bake Gourmet and ready to be run thru the vacuum pack machine.

I smoked this batch of cheese for 115 minutes.

Vacuum packing the cheese.

My 28 pounds of smoked cheese vacuumed packed and ready for the fridge.

Smoking Cheese in the Hasty-Bake Gourmet

I have been waiting patiently for some cooler weather as we are completely out of smoked cheese. I need a day or morning at about 50 degrees or under. 

This smoke was about 10 pounds of cheese including the following:

2 pound pepper jack

2 pound sharp cheddar

2.28 pound 4 year aged cheddar

1.14 pound Swiss

8oz monterey jack

8 oz mild cheddar

8 oz sharp cheddar

1.67 pound three alarm colby jack

I started the smoke early in the morning as I wanted the coolest temperatures of the day.

I used a half hotel pan full of ice to help hold down the temperature inside the cooker.

I used 5 all hardwood briquets for my fire and a couple of chunks of hickory for my smoke wood for this cook.

Was a nice morning with a cooler temperature of about 50 degrees. The cheese took 90 minutes to get done. I was able to keep the temperature inside the cooker at under 70 degrees which is great for smoking cheese.

The results of my smoke ready for the vacuum pack machine.

Bagged and ready for the fridge.

This should hold us for a few months.

Gotta love smoked cheese off of a Hasty Bake. And for any folks that have not tried real smoked cheese, you are missing out on a great treat. Most all smoked cheese available in outlets hasn’t been even close to a smoker... it is done with chemicals. 

Hasty-Bake Gourmet / Rib-O-Lator Rotisserie

I use the Rib-O-Lator in both my Weber Performer and my Green Mountain Daniel Boone grill but had not tried to set it up in my Hasty-Bake until yesterday. I did have to make a few adjustments to get it to work like I wanted and here is my first cook. 

I decided to cook a couple of slabs of pork loin back ribs, three pork steaks cut about 1/2” thick, and a big pork chop that I had left in the freezer. 

I trimmed the meat, and then added my rub, and when it got to the sweat stage, I put it on the Rib-O-Lator which was spinning on my all Stainless Steel Model 257 Gourmet Hasty-Bake cooker. 

I had figured that I would need about four hours in the cooker so I had loaded up enough fuel for that length of time and added a couple chunks of hickory for smoke. Everything looked good at the start of my first cook.

About 90 minutes into the cook, my pork steak and pork chop was nearing my finish temperature so I applied my glaze and let it cook an additional 15 minute and pulled them off of the cooker. 

When I pulled my steaks and chop, I also wrapped my ribs with some goodies. After an additional 45 minutes, the ribs were at 204-207 degrees internal which is my finish temp for this meat so at this point, they were unwrapped and placed bock on the cooker for my glaze. 

I let them glaze for about 15 more minutes and pulled them off the cooker. 

I had one of the pork steaks and a couple of ribs and some mashed potatoes with some  good ole white gravy made with bacon fat, and Mommy made up some cole slaw for my salad. Was way too much but the part I got eaten was sure good. 

The Rib-O-Lator worked fine in this cooker so I am sure it will see some more use in the future. 

Hasty-Bake Ranger Mini Review and 1st Cook

I have finely got around to setting up my new Hasty Bake Ranger 380SS to suit me and then doing my first cook on it.

I have it sitting on one of my service carts to make it much easier to use.

Built a Stainless Steel second cooking grate for the cooker. 

I also found a nice cover to fit this setup.

Next step was to cut a firebrick in half and then adding one whole firebrick to make my divider in the firebox for my fuse burns which is the method I use for my longer cooks in my Hasty-Bake cookers. 

I figured my first cook could probably take up to 5-6 hours so I loaded the charcoal pan about 80% full of the Stubb’s charcoal and added a few hickory chunks for smoke.

My first cook was to be a Slab of Ribs cooked over a half pan of BBQ  Pit Beans so the drippings would go into the pan to give the beans some additional flavor, and a pan of Au Gratin Potatoes. Wife made up a Wilted Baby Spinach Salad to go with this meal. 

Made up the pan of Au Gratin potatoes the evening before the cook and then did the same for my BBQ Pit Beans and put both into the fridge. 

Started my fuse burn the next morning just before daylight and it took about 45 minutes to get the cooker warmed up and on temperature for my cook.

While the cooker was coming up to temp, I prepped the ribs and then cut the slab into two pieces so they would fit over my pan of beans. At this time, I also added my brown sugar to the top of my bean pan. When the ribs reached the sweat stage, I started my cook. 

The fire in the charcoal pan just before I loaded the cooker...cooker temp was at 180 degrees and climbing slowly. 

This is about an hour into the cook and after I got the cooker vents adjusted for a nice steady burn.

The first item done were the potatoes.

Ribs were wrapped with some goodies about 2-3/4 hour into the cook.

The beans were the next item to get done and I hadn’t stirred in all the drippings and smoke skum when this picture was taken. 

The ribs were unwrapped and then glazed and this is my results for this treat. 

Ribs cut for serving. 

Wife’s Wilted Baby Spinach Salad to be served with this meal. 

Everything came out great and it sure was a wonderful lunch.

And for the Hasty-Bakers that are following my progress with this new Ranger and my method with the fuse burn to operate it, here is some additional information.

This cook took about 4-1/2 hours which is quicker than I expected and only used the first row or half of the loaded charcoal. This would calculate out to about 8-9 hours total cooking time with my 80% full load of charcoal if I would have needed it. And I think with a full load of charcoal, a fellow could get up to 10-11 hours total cooking time with this method. 

Cooker control was about what I expected and about the same as it is with my larger Hasty-Bakes. My planned cooking range for this cook was about 220-275 degrees measured on the surface of the cooking grid and I had both the intake and exhaust vents all the way open at the start of the cook. I shut the intake vent down to about half open about 1-1/2 hours into the cook. After the 2-1/2 hour mark, I closed the intake vent all the way. The last vent setting I had to make was to close the exhaust vent down to about half open and this just locked in the temperature to where I wanted it and I think it would have run for several more hours if I would have needed it. It’s almost a “set and forget” method of cooking on this smaller Hasty Bake Ranger (tailgater size) cooker. 

The food was great, the cooker operation was great, and I am very satisfied with my new cooker. 

Update: There is not as much room between the firebox and the ash pan so I had to cut down my normal 4" clearance to 2" between the firebox and the ash pan for this fuse burn. Worked fine at this distance. 

Corned and Pastramied Beef Brisket

We like to keep this meat on hand and did use up the last of what we had frozen a few week ago so it was time to do up another few pounds. 



I started with 3 choice brisket flats that weighed slightly over 21 pounds total. I also made up my first round of spices and seasonings. I also got about 150 cloves of garlic ready for my treat. I made up the curing brine that will be injected into the meat.





I trimmed up each brisket flat and then cut each one in half.



I injected the brine into each piece of meat.



I put the garlic thru my Suzy and packed a generous amount on each piece of meat. 





I packed on the spices and herbs and placed each piece of meat into a Zip-Lock bag. The meat went into the fridge for 4 days and was turned over about two times a day during this curing period. 





I took the meat out of the fridge and washed all the spices and seasonings off under running water at the sink and placed the meat into a pan of water for about an hour.  I then toweled the meat off and let it air dry for about 30 minutes.



Made up the second round of spices for the smoking process and packed them onto the brisket pieces and they were ready for the smoker.

Decided to use the Hasty-Bake for this smoke and rolled it around to my cooking patio.



I figured I would need about an seven hour smoke time so I setup a fuse burn for about an eight hour cook to be sure I had enough to finish my treat. I placed a couple of firebricks in the charcoal pan and then added 13 pounds of Wicked Good charcoal  briquettes. I then added some hickory chunks for my smoke. 



I fired the cooker up and brought it up to temp and loaded my 6 pieces of meat. 



A beautiful morning but a little chilly at 41 degrees and windy.



The meat got done a little quicker than I expected and I got the first piece off at about 4 hours and the last piece off at about 5-1/2 hours into the smoke. The meat was smoked to an internal of about 185 degrees.





Put the meat thru the slicer and it sure looked great. It will be packed into one pound vacuum bags and frozen for future use or....







A fellow might take about 1/2 pound of this meat and put it on some big slices rye bread and then slop on a few dollops of horsey sauce. He might add 3-4 slices of Swiss cheese and fold this sandwich up and serve it with a dill pickle. OH MY!!  It just don’t get any better than this.