Jay Florsheim is “nuts” when it comes to smoking.

With over 10 years of restaurant experience, Florsheim is no stranger to cooking — he even has his own YouTube channel “Cooking with J Flo” — a parody on cooking shows with its own fun, unique twist.

But for Florsheim, his new adventure in cooking is smoking cheeses, nuts and spices.

“The pecans are amazing,” the New Iberia resident said. “I’m doing smoked spices, I’m doing smoked sea salt, smoked paprika, which is great.”

Florsheim is also cold smoking cheese, a process that infuses food with that distinctive smoky flavor while using minimal heat.

Florsheim said he can use a hot or a cold smoke for his nuts and spices, but he’s not cooking the food. The objective for Florsheim is to transform the cheese into a flavorful smoked treat.

Florsheim smokes all of his food on his own grill and said the process takes time but the outcome is worth it.

After lighting the pellets, he blows out the flame for a minute or so and the smoke smolders and lasts for three to four hours.

He said the best way to smoke the food is to get something at a low temperature. His best results: Freezing large bottles of Fiji water to keep the temperature low. Due to the square shape, the bottles don’t roll around and it helps create the gill colder.

“I have to get up at 3 in the morning because you have to keep the grill below 85 degrees for the cheese or it’ll all start to melt and be a mess,” Florsheim said.

Every hour while the cheeses are in the smoker, Florsheim finds himself flipping the trays of cheese so the smoke is hitting them from a different direction.

After four hours, the cheese is finally where Florsheim wants it to be.

“The color and the texture is just right,” Florsheim said. “I take them out and let them come to room temperature, and I vacuum seal them and put them in the fridge for a month.”

Some of Florsheim’s favorite smoked cheeses have been cheddar, gouda and havarti, which he said has been the best of the bunch.

The end results of the smoking process for the cheeses as well as the nuts and spices enhances the overall flavor of the food with a hint of smoke, which brings it to a new level.

So far, Florsheim has had great success in his smoking for a novice but ran into trouble with fresh mozzarella. Due to the moisture of the mozzarella, the smoke wasn’t absorbed into the cheese.

“It just made a funky texture, but everything else I did was good,” Florsheim said. “It’s easy and I am an amateur at this, but so far, so good.”

When Louisiana temperatures drop, Florsheim is stuck to waking up in the middle of the night to check on his cheese but he doesn’t mind it.

“I don’t sleep a whole lot anyway, so it works out for me,” Florsheim said.

Florsheim isn’t sure why he started cold smoking but he’s enjoyed the process these last six weeks.

And for this last month and a half, Florsheim has gotten serious when it comes to his smoking, going so far to create a name and logos for his new smoking products: Peace, Love & Smoke.

The name and idea comes from Florsheim’s father, who, according to him, fits the name.

“My dad was an all-American hippie,” Florsheim said. “He died in 2012 and it’s paying homage to him.”

Now Florsheim is taking his new smoking sensations to the New Iberia’s Festival & Farmers Market every Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m., and it’s been a big hit among locals.

“I sell out everything I have every week,” Florsheim said. “And spices and the samples of the cheese out there and I have people that show up for the cheese, wanting to try that.”

With such a demand for his smoked foods, Florsheim said he’s stocked up at home with cheeses in multiple fridges. But with the success at the farmers market, he’s made enough money to buy a new fridge.

“It’s funny, it’s escalated so quickly,” Florsheim said.

Florsheim thinks his smoked foods have been a big hit for Teche Area residents because not many people do it around New Iberia.

“If you taste it next to store-bought smoked almonds or store-bought smoked gouda, there is no comparison,” Florsheim said. “Coming from the wood smoker, it doesn’t taste like it was done industrially. It’s a really nice, subtle thing.”