Finishing up the 4 day process to make nova lox. It's cool enough to cold smoke now, and I have been patiently waiting. I nearly blew the whole batch. I woke up and fired up the smoke generator and put it in the smoker. Cool, crisp, no chance of having any temp problems. Nice breeze too, that should help. I was going to split the batch but conditions are good for cold smoking, I can do it all in one. It's my third try, I'm an expert now!
Firing up the smoker!
I load the fish. It's beautiful. Two days dry brine, 2 hour desal, 36 hours air dry. Only four hours of cold smoke to go.
The smoker is running fine, everything is great. I check it every 15 min or so. An hour goes by. Hey, does that temp display say 90? Who changed that to Farenheit? And how did it get so hot? Whoa. That's not F. it's C!
The breeze has created a bit of venturi on some of my air outlets, and there was WAY too much airflow. Not a big deal, until the pellets in the smoke generator burst into flames. I felt like the Martian (which is a great book by the way, can't wait to see the movie!)
I had no idea how long this had been going on. I grab the grill grate and yank it out, getting some nice 2nd degree burns on my fingers in the process. Nice. Blisters make good souveniers.
The fish looks OK, but is sweating a bit. Thin edges look cooked. Dangit!
I pulled the smallest, thinnest piece off and attempted to cut it. It crumbled. It tasted OK, but nobody wants to do a 4 day cooking process and get something that just tastes OK. It wasn't what I wanted. I went off to be by myself for a while.
Dear god...no...
Eventually, I set the smoker back up, sealed the vents better and finished the cold smoke.
In the end, the thicker pieces are ok. The thinner coho was a bit crumbly, but only on the edges and still had good texture and flavor.
Near miss.
There's the finished product ready for gifting.