Smoked salmon

[Up North2]

New to the forum but have been a avid smoker for a long time. Made a trip to Port Washington last spring and came home with some nice salmon. did them up in a simple dry brine which was 4 cups dark brown sugar and 1 cup kosher salt. Layered fillets in a food safe bucket and covered with the brine. Repeat the layers until all fillets are covered in brine. Let them sit in the brine for about 12 hours and then air dry for about 4 hours to form the pellicle.

Put them in the vertical part of my stick burner (used apple wood) and smoked at about 150 for 6 hours until they were a nice color and firm to the touch.

The smoker...

The fish...

Fish meets smoker...

All done!...

The dry brine is great and simple and adds a nice sweet flavor to the salmon. you might want to give it a try!

[thirdeye]

Welcome aboard. Great looking smoker and salmon!!

I also use a dry cure, my base is 3C sugar to 1C of salt plus some other seasonings. I used to do them in plastic tubs but switched to plastic wrap for individual fillets. I use less cure and get a really even cure. I wrap'em and stack 'em. Here are a couple of shots of how I prep them. The bottom picture is 8 hours into the cure..... by dry cure has leeched out moistness and turned into a syrup.

[bak2MN]

Is that a lemon or orange wedges? Looks YUMMY!!!

[DonBo]

Welcome UP NORTH. Looking fwd to seeing what else will come out of that awesome smoker of yours.

[Coryy]

I use a brine of 1 gallon of apple cider, 1 cup of Brown sugar and 1 cup of kosher salt.

I typically "hot" smoke mine around 160deg and the fish I will smoke is typically the 4-year olds that just aren't up to snuff when it comes to table fare from the grill.

Here is a piece I did that shows how I have done it.

Smoking Fish!

[maxpower17]

I also do a wet brine. Can't give you the recipe because I do it based on taste. I have recently added a fresh squeezed lemon to my beine that gives it a new layer of flavor.

Here's a little know fact about smoking foods. The visible smoke actually does nothing for the flavor of the food. In fact it's the airborne chemicals given off by the smoldering of the wood. The visible smoke is actually more harmful than helpful. In the end it makes a negligible difference but worrying about constant smoke is not necessary. A small amout of smoke simply indicates the proper burning temp of the smoking wood. Soaking the wood in water only creates steam that actually doesn't help the smoking.

[Up North2]

Thanks for the comments guys. I like your method of wrapping the fish thirdeye. Those are lemon wedges I put on the fish. I take them off after the first couple hours.

I run my smoker so that the majority of the time all you can see is the heat signature coming from the exhaust or a light blue smoke similar to a cigarette smoke. Heavy white smoke is bad. Means your producing creosote which makes your food tastes bad.

[otterman91105]

Sure looks like a nice smoker. Welcome. Thirdeye's recipe is awesome!

[blue_healer_guy]

Coryy, used your brine on some smaller northern this weekend, was great, thanks!