I botched my first batch of sockeye....please help!

Hey suezi,

cmayna is giving you some great advice as well as others on the thread. Did you let the fish dry in the fridge overnight or out on a counter at room temp? I typically only dry mine for 1-2 hours with a small electric fan if I'm in a hurry. I don't wait until it is completely dry on the outside either. I like what cmayna said about batch size. I think the most I have ever done in my big chief (I have the front load version) is maybe around 8-10 pounds at a time. Granted it can do more but I started with very small batches (maybe 3 pounds of fillets) at first until I developed the level of smoke and flavors that I wanted. 

I just re-read this from your last post:

 
i think we did everything right. the last batch of fish tastes good but it's so dang dry.

when we had the fish processed professionally in alaska it was moist-no hard outter shell. it tasted slightly smokey (we had some done with garlic/pepper, some cajun).

the fish we smoked ourselves is more like "squaw candy"-it has a hard outter shell, semi-dry meat. it's tasty ( i added cayenne pepper and garlic to the brine) and then added additional lemon pepper to some pieces, montreal steak seasoning to other pieces, and left some without additional seasoning.  i even experimented by putting in two pieces without brining at all. it still dried out.

i used a regular meat thermometer and cooked unitl IT was 140-145 (it was hard to tell since the tails are so small).

however, we also smoked the bellies and they are juicier (more oil in them ) and moister.

Click to expand...

It sounds to me like maybe what they did in alaska was a quick hot smoke of the salmon. The fish that I smoke have a somewhat hard (I would think firm would describe it better) outer shell and the inside is flaky and moist. Less so than if I had baked or grilled some fillets. I hope you don't give up yet. There is still a lot you can do with a big chief. Makes great jerky and smoked cheese in my never to be humble opinion.