Thanks for everyone's feedback. I think I am going to start off trying some cheese and maybe some nuts.
@BC - Depends on the time of the day here in AZ. It gets cold (not by your standards) at night averaging about 47-50 overnight, so that might be the better time for me to do some cold smokes...or early morning. During the day right now the temps are anywhere between 65-78, so that might make true cold smokes a little difficult.
@pbe gummi bear - I've hot smoked pork belly before but haven't tried cold smoking so that is definitely on my list as is cheese. I'm not a big salmon fan, but don't mind smoked (raw) salmon and my gf is the same way, so that is on my list as well. And thanks for tagging
@Troy and
@LightningBoldtz. I'm looking forward to Troy's bacon write up and LightningBoldtz gave me some great info.
@austin87 - I think you are right about using the tube on its own without coals...I can always add a few hot coals if needed, but with temps here the heat from the tube might be enough. I was thinking about getting some cheese done to send as a thank you, so I think I'll take that advice!
@Troy - I look forward to a write up about making bacon from pork belly. I've done a belly before then sliced it and cooked it up for bacon and it was awesome, but I am sure cold smoking it will take it to another level!
@fedex - Let me know how your belly goes!
@LightningBoldtz - Great info. I will definitely use my 26er to get the cheese as far away from the heat as I can. Will try to do some early morning smokes when the temp are lower. I should be able to stack up cheeses behind some things in the fridge so the GF doesn't go nuts about a bunch of sealed up blocks that can't be touched for weeks!
One last question. Does anyone use your tube for regular smokes? I'm thinking that using the tube instead of chunks will help prevent temperature spikes when my snake hits a new chunk of wood. I don't really have too much of a problem with that, but would be interested to see if I can get even more constant temps using the tube.