first try at smoked salmon - qview

[dalglish]

Just picked up a 3lb fillet of Wild Alaskan Salmon @ $10.99/lb from Tony's fish market in Oregon City, they also have a smoke house :- http://tonyssmokehouse.com/default.asp

I asked them about wood, brine and everything else. They were pretty guarded about specifics (naturally) but did give me some good advice. I'll be trying to get some apple, cherry and alder chunks for this. For the brine I'm thinking 1:1 salt/brown sugar, crushed garlic, black pepper.

I may use Dutch's glaze during the smoke too.



vac sealed it and put it in the fridge, someone will tell me I didn't need to do that. That's ok though, just playing with a new toy :)


I think I'll cut the fillet into smaller pieces and I'm not sure if I'll do them all at the same time.

I've done a fair amount of reading today on smoking salmon and the methods vary wildly, I've seen 2:1 salt/sugar, dry brine/wet brine/no brine, cold smoking/hot smoking. I'll be hot smoking as I want that slightly moist crumble rather than thin sliced lox etc.

I've put this up before I start so I can get as many tips from the experts as possible. Anything you can add will really be appreciated, I'd love to get it right first time!

 

[pitrow]

1:1 on the salt/sugar is going to be MIGHTY salty. I usually do 4:1 brown sugar to canning salt. I guess it depends on how long you leave it in there though.

 

[heapomeat]

Go simple and lite to begin with. See my avatar about what smoking 60 pounds of fillets is all about.

 

[dalglish]

This is the thing, I'm reading varied quantities for the brine. I did see a 4:1 brown sugar to salt ratio for a dry brine and then a 1:1 for a wet brine

dry brine :-
http://www.salmonuniversity.com/rs_htss01_step02.html
wet brine :-
http://www.smoker-cooking.com/brineforsmokedsalmon.html

Looking into this further has raised more questions than it has provided answers so far! Can anyone explain the results of a dry brine versus a wet brine?

 

[dalglish]

Perfect! I like simple.

 

[pitrow]

you're right, I guess I didn't see any water in your brine so I assumed dry.

The reason I dry brine goes like this... the brining process is one of osmosis where the salt in solution tries to equalize inside and outside of the meat. Since you start with a high concentration of salt outside the meat, it gets drawn into the meat, and it takes whatever else is in the brine along with it.

So in a wet brine, you're pulling a lot of water in with it. In a dry brine, for the osmosis to happen, the salt first needs to pull moisture from within the fish, "fish juice" as I call it. Then that gets pulled back into the fish along with the salt.

Just personal preference, but I'd rather have the natural juices in there than extra water.

 

[dalglish]

Thanks pitrow, I think I'll try both methods and smoke at the same time to see if I prefer dry over wet brining.