My salmon smoking setup is a Bradley Original Smoker with smoke piped into it from a toolbox with an A-Maze-N tube(s) filled with apple pellets. The heating elements (it has 2 totaling 1000 watts) are on the back wall. Because of this I rotate the tray positions and spin them every 30 or so minutes in an effort to even out the heat on the 4-6 salmon pieces per tray. I also try to put pieces of similar thickness together on a tray. I usually do 4-5 pounds per smoke and I try to catch the salmon so it doesn’t go over 140* IT but I don’t always succeed. Those pieces that go over, usually the thinnest, can be quite a bit dryer. It seems like 140 is the magic number. Anything less is always moist but much over that and it suffers. We use the drier pieces to make salmon dip so it isn’t a major problem but I’ve always hated this time at the end and wished there was a way to fix it. The pieces are different thicknesses so getting them to finish at the same temperature is a problem. The other day I smoked 5 pounds and I had a presentation piece, a whole filet with the tail and all, for Thanksgiving and it ranged from about an inch thick down to almost nothing. So I experimented. I set up my sous vide at 138* (don’t tell the food police) and vacuum sealed the pieces when they hit the 130’s and dropped them into the pool for an hour. Problem solved. It all gets to 138* regardless of thickness. I left them in the fridge overnight and then froze them (already vacuum sealed!) the next day. Today we tried some. Thin and thick, it was all moist. Yee-haa!
