First Salmon Smoke

[curious aardvark]

Even Great smoked salmon does not taste good to me warm

Not much better to go along with a Natty fo sho

man you are missing out. It's good hot, cold, warm, straight from the smoker, eaten like a fishcicle straight from the freezer.
There is NO bad way to eat smoked salmon :-)

Okay while the results look great there are a couple of things I really have to mention here:

1) You got up at 03:45 to smoke salmon.
That is INSANE !

2) bear says if he leaves the fish in the marinade too long it tastes too salty.
Use less salt - there are enough spices and flavours in there that you're not going to miss a little less salt. Salmon is so moist that trying to get extra moisture in (what brining is about) is kinda pointless, plus it just means more time in the smoker to get that extra moisture out again - the salt is for flavour and , generally, to reduce water in the fish - so why use too much

I see a lot of this with people making bacon cures. They cure it and then soak for hours to reduce the saltiness - so start with less salt - this really isn't rocket science. (that's next week's project - no really it is, I'm going to cook up some rocket motors)

I generally marinade salmon for hot smoking over night, or for a few hours or just slap the marinade on the fish in the smoker - seriously this is never an issue. As long as there is no acid in the marinade/brine you can pretty much leave it any length of time you like. Fish absorb flavours much much quicker than meat.

You sure as hell do not ever need to get up in the middle of the night to smoke fish

However I feel it's got to worth 'dedication to smoking food'
And the final result was worth it :-)

[Mark R]

I'm kinda curious how it came out? I usually pull mine at internal of 130°ish, 150° - 160° may dry the fish out. But if I'm making fish dip and want the fish to be chunky I do cook it a little hotter/longer.
Looks like a real good effort, great color!!

[Bearcarver]

2) bear says if he leaves the fish in the marinade too long it tastes too salty.
Use less salt - there are enough spices and flavours in there that you're not going to miss a little less salt. Salmon is so moist that trying to get extra moisture in (what brining is about) is kinda pointless, plus it just means more time in the smoker to get that extra moisture out again - the salt is for flavour and , generally, to reduce water in the fish - so why use too much

I see a lot of this with people making bacon cures. They cure it and then soak for hours to reduce the saltiness - so start with less salt - this really isn't rocket science. (that's next week's project - no really it is, I'm going to cook up some rocket motors)

I generally marinade salmon for hot smoking over night, or for a few hours or just slap the marinade on the fish in the smoker - seriously this is never an issue. As long as there is no acid in the marinade/brine you can pretty much leave it any length of time you like. Fish absorb flavours much much quicker than meat.

If you look at my step by step, you will see that I did 7 batches to perfect it. As for the amount of salt, I tried less, and it was OK for the thinner pieces. However with the amount I use in my final recipe, you can mix one batch, and just put thinner pieces in a bag for 4 hours & thicker pieces in a bag for 6 hours. Then you won't have any too salty, and none not salty enough. You say "Why use Too Much Salt?"---It isn't "Too Much" for thick pieces of Salmon brined for 6 hours, or thinner pieces brined for 4 hours. No it's not Rocket Science---It's a recipe you get from a lot of trial & error experiments. This was the way it worked best for me, and hundreds who have tried it since.
It also doesn't mean other ways don't work great for other people.

BTW: Most old smoking books tell you to brine fish in a brine that you can float an egg in. Since you can't float an egg in my brine recipe, I don't think it has TOO MUCH salt.


Bear

[Mark R]

If you look at my step by step, you will see that I did 7 batches to perfect it. As for the amount of salt, I tried less, and it was OK for the thinner pieces. However with the amount I use in my final recipe, you can mix one batch, and just put thinner pieces in a bag for 4 hours & thicker pieces in a bag for 6 hours. Then you won't have any too salty, and none not salty enough. You say "Why use Too Much Salt?"---It isn't "Too Much" for thick pieces of Salmon brined for 6 hours, or thinner pieces brined for 4 hours. No it's not Rocket Science---It's a recipe you get from a lot of trial & error experiments. This was the way it worked best for me, and hundreds who have tried it since.
It also doesn't mean other ways don't work great for other people.

BTW: Most old smoking books tell you to brine fish in a brine that you can float an egg in. Since you can't float an egg in my brine recipe, I don't think it has TOO MUCH salt.


Bear

I can tell you from having used Bears recipe it does not have too much salt! Unless you leave the fish in brine for 24 hours due to interruptions. But that is user error, not Bear error!!
That said I did cut the salt in half on the last batch because the Soy Sauce I use is very salty. I cannot find the low sodium stuff in bulk around here...so far.

[SmokinOutBack]

Excellent Dave, just excellent.

[DDave]

1) You got up at 03:45 to smoke salmon.
That is INSANE !

Well, I guess I really didn't have to. I was wanting to pull them out of the brine (not knowing at the time that it would have been okay to leave them in longer) and it's only 35 minutes earlier than I get up on a normal work day anyway.

I was going to dry them off and put them back in the fridge and go back to bed for a couple of hours but I had the smoker all ready to light so I figured I'd just light it and get 'em going.

It's funny how getting up at 4:20 am for work is too damn early but getting up at 4 am on a Saturday to smoke a couple pork shoulders seems just fine.

Dave

[DDave]

Oh, and I ate some this morning.

A bit on the salty side but the piece I had was somewhat thinner than the majority. I liked it though. Texture was firm and not too dry. Not oversmoked.

All in all pretty good.

And no one else in the family really likes fish. So that means there's more for me.

Dave