The Problem

My original smoke tube didn’t survive the garage fire, so this smoke started with a replacement — and a new problem. The whole point of a pellet tube is a slow smolder, not a flame, but this one kept doing the opposite.

What Happened

There’s a fine line between smoking and flaming. If the pellets are flaming, you don’t get the steady smoldering smoke I’m looking for, and you risk melting the cheese in the process. I lit it on my propane grill the way I always do — grates off, tube set directly on the flavorizer bars. After doing this repeatedly, I generally give the tube three to five minutes on the grill before moving it to the smoker. This time, my first attempt moved it too early — not enough smoke. Back on the grill, and this time it caught full flame.

The Fix

I placed it in the bottom of the Weber Smokey Mountain and assembled the smoker anyway. Usually a little flame during the move from grill to smoker burns itself out on its own — this time it didn’t. I checked a few minutes later and it was still flaming. A short blast from a spray bottle knocked it down, and from there it smoked cleanly for over 4 hours. Flaming pellets don’t just mean you’re missing out on usable smoke — they also mean real heat right next to the cheese, with the same melting risk as skipping the ice pan.

The Cheese

Three 2 lb blocks of Cabot cheese from Sam’s Club — aged sharp cheddar, white cheddar, pepper jack — plus four 8 oz sticks of aged white cheddar from Aldi’s, a combination that’s turned out well before.

Checked on it two hours in and it was getting some color.

At four hours, it had picked up considerably more color. The replacement tube was still going strong, seemed a little larger than the one lost in the fire. I didn’t want to risk too much smoke, so I pulled it there — 2½ to 4 hours has been my sweet spot.

My process is to rest the cheese for about an hour in a cool oven. If any oil has come off the cheese, I wipe it off before sealing. In this case, there was none.

Then it’s vacuum sealed, dated, and stored. Three weeks is the sweet spot for the smoke to mellow and get absorbed — straight off the smoker or even the next day, it would taste like you licked an ashtray.

Quick Reference

• Not enough smoke: Give it another minute or two beside the burner before moving it — don’t rush the three-to-five-minute lighting step.
• Catches flame after moving to the smoker: Use a short spray of water to knock it back to a smolder, then check it shortly afterward to ensure the pellets are still smoking.
• New tube behaving differently than your old one: treat the first run as a test and check on it more often than usual. (unchanged, third bullet stays as-is)

For the full process, see The Complete Guide to Cold-Smoking Cheese. If your cheese ends up with more smoke than intended instead of a flame problem, see Can You Over-Smoke Cheese?.