Ok, I smoked some more cheese today. Tillamook cheddar, hickory smoked. Ambient temp varied from 59-69F during the smoke, ~7 hours.
Start of smoke:
Almost the end of smoke:
Color comparison to fresh cheese from the same 5 lb block. They definitely seem smaller, although you can't really compare the sizes of the smoked on the left to the not-smoked on the right, they weren't exactly uniform when I cut them. The smoked ones have a crust of some sort, but I'm not sure if the cheese looks much different from cheese left at that temp and humidity for 7 hours would
without smoking it. I read somewhere I should wipe them before wrapping, and this time there was drops of oil/fat on the surface, so that's good. Not so much last time.
Anyway, they're wrapped and "resting" for a week or ten days. I'll do some more cheddar and probably some gouda, but this time with cherry.