I hadn’t done this before, and found a bunch of posts here where people use A-Maze-N tubes with pellets in their smokers. Makes a lot of sense, but I’m fairly stubborn, don’t have one, and don’t want to buy one OR pellets just for this use. After a cheeseless "dry run" last weekend with outdoor temps ~50F I was fairly certain I could pull it off in my kettle with SNS. Here’s how it went today...
Temps were sub freezing in Bull City overnight. My kettle lid was frozen on and I had to take a lighter to the vent cover before I could adjust it. Perfect! I started by lighting 2 Weber briquettes in a chimney. I used 2 fire starters, one after the other, to get these two lit well. In the meantime I added ice water to the SNS trough. Once lit I put them in the SNS, added two more briquettes on either side, and set a pecan chunk snuggly up against the lit briquettes.


I just gave that a minute or two with the lid off, got the cheeses on and the probe in place. I went with blocks of mozzarella, medium cheddar, and pepper jack for my first try. Bottom vent was about 1/3 open, top was about 1/2 open to start.

I got the lid down at 7:15am and it was 30F outside. After 40 min the ambient temp climbed to 80F so I took the lid off for ~5 seconds and replaced it. This really only gained me a few degrees, so I closed both vents slightly. I also felt the lid, and the side over the fire was warm, so I poured water over it to remove some additional heat.
I was checking the smoke periodically because in my dry run I actually choked out my fire after adjusting the vents too much. And after an hour, I noticed no smoke from the vents so I opened it up to check on things. My initial two briquettes had about 30% left and weren’t touching the pecan chunk. So I just tightened up my little pile, closed the lid, and immediately smoke resumed. From this point on I never had to tend to anything. Temps stabilized around 80F and smoke continued to roll for the next hour.
After 2 hours, this was the state of the fuel:

And the cheese didn’t melt! Outdoor temp was 35F at the finish.

I brought them and let them breathe for just a few, I could definitely detect the smokey aroma. Then I wrapped them in Saran Wrap and put them in a ziplock and into the garage fridge. Guess I’ll let you know in a month how they turned out! Definitely appears to be a fairly easy repeatable process, as long as the outdoor temps are cold enough.
Temps were sub freezing in Bull City overnight. My kettle lid was frozen on and I had to take a lighter to the vent cover before I could adjust it. Perfect! I started by lighting 2 Weber briquettes in a chimney. I used 2 fire starters, one after the other, to get these two lit well. In the meantime I added ice water to the SNS trough. Once lit I put them in the SNS, added two more briquettes on either side, and set a pecan chunk snuggly up against the lit briquettes.
I just gave that a minute or two with the lid off, got the cheeses on and the probe in place. I went with blocks of mozzarella, medium cheddar, and pepper jack for my first try. Bottom vent was about 1/3 open, top was about 1/2 open to start.
I got the lid down at 7:15am and it was 30F outside. After 40 min the ambient temp climbed to 80F so I took the lid off for ~5 seconds and replaced it. This really only gained me a few degrees, so I closed both vents slightly. I also felt the lid, and the side over the fire was warm, so I poured water over it to remove some additional heat.
I was checking the smoke periodically because in my dry run I actually choked out my fire after adjusting the vents too much. And after an hour, I noticed no smoke from the vents so I opened it up to check on things. My initial two briquettes had about 30% left and weren’t touching the pecan chunk. So I just tightened up my little pile, closed the lid, and immediately smoke resumed. From this point on I never had to tend to anything. Temps stabilized around 80F and smoke continued to roll for the next hour.
After 2 hours, this was the state of the fuel:
And the cheese didn’t melt! Outdoor temp was 35F at the finish.
I brought them and let them breathe for just a few, I could definitely detect the smokey aroma. Then I wrapped them in Saran Wrap and put them in a ziplock and into the garage fridge. Guess I’ll let you know in a month how they turned out! Definitely appears to be a fairly easy repeatable process, as long as the outdoor temps are cold enough.

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