It needs refrigeration...... read this about smoking fish...... http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/haccp/compendium/chapt07.htm .... Lots of good info on food safety in that link.....I am going to try this recipe next week. I have a buddy in a deployed location. After I follow this recipe and vacuum seal it, is it safe to send unrefrigerated in the USPS or will it arrive ruined and unfit for consumption???
Lox is not cooked..... Don't use heat..... It is chemically cooked with salt and cure and sugar..... If you have the AMNTS running, keep the temp below 70 deg F.......
So salmon was on sale last week and I have about 8 pounds in the fridge about half-way through drying.
This is my second run with this method and the first one was great. My two sons, just home from college, went through the whole 10-pound batch in about four days. Yeah, it was that good.
My only drawback was I didn't feel like I got much smoke on. Could not get my 44" Smoke Hollow down low enough. The temps kept spiking and I was afraid I would cook the fish. I finally left the cabinet door open and just let it smoke free-style.
So for this run I bought an AMNTS. Came home from the store with the fish, immediately ordered the tube and it arrived before the fish finished curing -- thanks Todd! Here's my question. With only the tube burning, do I need to worry about the temps at all? Can I just light it, chuck it in the smoker and come back a few hours later or do I need to gear up with all the thermos and keep an eye on it? I usually run with three thermos -- one in the cabinet and another one or two in the meat (depending on how much I'm smoking.)
Thoughts?
after you smoke it, coat if you must.... Your pellicle was too dry and formed too much... a light pellicle is recommended..... after the rinse and dry, maybe an hour under the fan and straight into the smoke.... the meat should be "tacky dry" and not "dry dry and shiny" like I do for kippered salmon to lock the moisture in....Has anyone ever used a light coating of Olive Oil or any other cooking oil on your Salmon before you cold smoke it for Lox? The last batch i smoked had a little harder coating on the tops of the fillets than I normally get when cold smoking. It was a cool day and the smoker temperature never got even close to 100 degrees. Because of the cool temperature i did not put a frozen bottle of water inthe drip pan and this was the only difference in smoking this batch. Any advice or comments are appreciated.
mds51
PB, evening...... If have used this exact recipe... the fish came out perfect...
I gave this a whirl, followed everything to the "T" and not sure where I went wrong. Prepared 5lbs of salmon which I caught about a month ago.
There are 2 things that I don't like, and I'm sure it's something I did so hoping someone out there can help me discover the issues.
#1 - Its super salty. In fact all I really taste is the salt. I soaked in saturated salt water for 30 min as was recommended and went through all the steps, desalination was done, soaking for 90 min as described at the end before drying in the fridge.
#2 - It's super smoky - maybe almost creosote smelling? I'm not entirely sure what creosote smells like but this fish doesn't have nice light smoky flavor/aroma like the other salmon I have smoked at higher temps. It almost "stings" your nose when you take a good whiff, if you know what I mean. The aroma has mellowed out since last night but I wonder if the smoke was hanging out in the smoker to long before exiting up the chimney? I let them in the smoker for 4 hours, cabinet temp was 56 degrees when i started and 76 degrees when i pulled them. I am using an AMNPS in a 1/2 size holding cabinet smoker. My AMNPS burned fine the whole time and smoke was coming out the chimney. I have had over smoked food but this takes it to a whole new level. I checked the salmon at 2 hours and There did not appear to be much of any smoke aroma at that point.
I cant get past how salty this is...and if I was able to get over the saltiness then i would have trouble getting past the "smoky aroma" that is present.
Please help, what did I do?