Why Hickory

Hickory is my favorite wood for smoking meat. For flavor, nothing else comes close — I’d burn it just to sit around the smoke and enjoy the smell. So I figured I’d try it on cheese, and it paired well. It’s what I’ve been using lately.

It doesn’t take much, either. Even a full Christmas run — about three batches, roughly 100 sticks — doesn’t use a lot of pellets, so one bag of hickory goes a long way.

Where It Started: Cherry vs. Oak in 2016

My pellet choice didn’t start with hickory. Back in 2016 I ran the same cheese through the same process one week apart, and the only difference was the pellet: cherry the first week, oak the second. The first batch was a Cracker Barrel variety pack from Sam’s Club: Extra Sharp, Sharp, and Vermont White.

It was below freezing in Tennessee that morning, which is good cold-smoking weather. I loaded my Amazen pellet tube with cherry pellets, which was my go-to back then.

The goal is smoldering, not flaming. I light the tube next to the burner on my old decommissioned Weber gas grill, then move it to the smoker.

I put the cheese on and let it run, planning on about 4 hours or until the pellets stopped smoking.

About two hours in, it was picking up good color.

After the full 4 hours, I pulled it and moved it to a cool oven to rest.

I let it rest about an hour, wiped off the oil that had come to the surface, then vacuum sealed it, labeled it, and set it aside for 3 weeks.

What the 2016 Test Taught Me

I smoked those two batches specifically to compare cherry and oak, waited three weeks to taste them, and never wrote down the result. Nearly ten years later, I can’t reconstruct what I noticed. Both woods worked, but I can’t tell you which one won. The lesson I carried forward: write it down.

Cherry, oak, and hickory have all worked on cheese for me. Hickory is where I’ve landed, because it’s the smoke I like best on everything else too.

For the full process (equipment, timing, resting, and troubleshooting), see The Complete Guide to Cold-Smoking Cheese.