Two neighbors of mine went on separate salmon charters out on Lake Ontario last week, and both ended up with way more fish than they have freezer space for... naturally, they thought about smoked salmon and brought me a LOT of fish to run through my ECB.
Essentially, one full gallon ziplock bag (and I mean FULL), is enough to fill both racks in my ECB. I was given 6 of these full gallon bags.
With things going on, there simply was no way to smoke them all up over the weekend, but I did manage to do two batches.
The first batch I didn't even get started on until 8:00PM, so by the time I was done, the meat had cooled and I had it in the fridge, it was 2:00 AM. For some reason I woke up, wide awake at 7:30 the next morning, and went ahead and pulled the second batch out of the brine and got it going.
Simple brown sugar and kosher salt wet brine. (1 gal water, 1 C dark brown sugar, 1/2 C Kosher salt)
basted fillets with maple syrup 30 minutes before done
smoked for 5 hours on the left side of "ideal" on the Brinkmann with apple wood chunks for my smoke (needle pointed between the 11 and 12 o'clock position).
Since bearcarveer mentioned smoking without skin, I decided to give it at try. This was the first time I did salmon without skin (or foil under it). Turns out, that skinless is the way I'm smoking salmon from here on out - it definitely makes a difference - in a positive way. Also, I did the first batch as a 5 hour smoke and the second batch as a 4 hour smoke. I'm like bearcarver, in that I like the harder smoked salmon that I can grab and eat with my hand as a snack, so it turned out that the 5 hour smoke is the one that turned out the way I like it. I'll still do some for 4 hours - for the recipes my wife has that use smoked salmon, but will do more of the 5 hour snack variety. Since I'm still using the factory temp gage on my ECB, I'm guessing the whole smoke stays between 200 and 225. With the ECB, I can't do the stepped temps that BC does with his MES, so have to stick with low and slow.
Gee I've still got four more batches to do, and if time permits, I plan to catch some for myself too. Gonna have lots of smoked salmon to put up in the freezer for the winter!!! The salmon should be staging off the mouths of the tributaries this coming weekend, making shallow trolling the way to go, followed in a couple weeks by the big fall run getting into full force. Boat, then waders! Maybe I'll run into BC's son up at Pulaski!
QView
On the grates air drying to form pellicle (i only go about an hour - I usually wait about 15-20 minutes, then start up my charcoal chimney - right about an hour out, it's ready to smoke:
got a chimney full started up
First batch done (5 hours):
second batch (4 hours)
oh yeah, there is a bit missing from one chunk in both finished photos - the cook had to sample it to make sure it was ok for everyone else :biggrin:
Essentially, one full gallon ziplock bag (and I mean FULL), is enough to fill both racks in my ECB. I was given 6 of these full gallon bags.
With things going on, there simply was no way to smoke them all up over the weekend, but I did manage to do two batches.
The first batch I didn't even get started on until 8:00PM, so by the time I was done, the meat had cooled and I had it in the fridge, it was 2:00 AM. For some reason I woke up, wide awake at 7:30 the next morning, and went ahead and pulled the second batch out of the brine and got it going.
Simple brown sugar and kosher salt wet brine. (1 gal water, 1 C dark brown sugar, 1/2 C Kosher salt)
basted fillets with maple syrup 30 minutes before done
smoked for 5 hours on the left side of "ideal" on the Brinkmann with apple wood chunks for my smoke (needle pointed between the 11 and 12 o'clock position).
Since bearcarveer mentioned smoking without skin, I decided to give it at try. This was the first time I did salmon without skin (or foil under it). Turns out, that skinless is the way I'm smoking salmon from here on out - it definitely makes a difference - in a positive way. Also, I did the first batch as a 5 hour smoke and the second batch as a 4 hour smoke. I'm like bearcarver, in that I like the harder smoked salmon that I can grab and eat with my hand as a snack, so it turned out that the 5 hour smoke is the one that turned out the way I like it. I'll still do some for 4 hours - for the recipes my wife has that use smoked salmon, but will do more of the 5 hour snack variety. Since I'm still using the factory temp gage on my ECB, I'm guessing the whole smoke stays between 200 and 225. With the ECB, I can't do the stepped temps that BC does with his MES, so have to stick with low and slow.
Gee I've still got four more batches to do, and if time permits, I plan to catch some for myself too. Gonna have lots of smoked salmon to put up in the freezer for the winter!!! The salmon should be staging off the mouths of the tributaries this coming weekend, making shallow trolling the way to go, followed in a couple weeks by the big fall run getting into full force. Boat, then waders! Maybe I'll run into BC's son up at Pulaski!
QView
On the grates air drying to form pellicle (i only go about an hour - I usually wait about 15-20 minutes, then start up my charcoal chimney - right about an hour out, it's ready to smoke:
got a chimney full started up
First batch done (5 hours):
second batch (4 hours)
oh yeah, there is a bit missing from one chunk in both finished photos - the cook had to sample it to make sure it was ok for everyone else :biggrin:
Last edited:
