Another smoked salmon

How did the Salmon turn out?????

It was interesting.

I smoked it slowly for a full four hours. That was after brining for three hours in a brine similar to 3-men's brine. I added some more cherry wood twice over the four hour period, so the fish got a lot of smoke. It had a beautiful dark red color to it.

It was intensely smokey tasting. It was also pretty dry. If I were going to make a smoked salmon dip, this would be acceptable because the fish would be crumbled up and the dryness would be compensated for, while the smokiness would come through about as strongly as the salmon flavor, or a bit more so.

I read many articles online about how to hot-smoke fish, especially salmon. I read stuff from various universities, as well as other sources. The universities all pretty much say the same thing. They say that fish has lots of natural parasites in it, and you must smoke the fish to an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Wow! Not a single one of the non-university sources say that. They all say to smoke it to an internal temp of 140.

I planned to smoke mine to 140, but it climbed on me faster in the last 15 minutes than I anticipated and it was 142 when I pulled it out. Maybe it was the long four hours of smoking, or maybe it was the temp, but it was a lot drier than you'd think.

The first time I smoked salmon I went to 130 and it was much better than this one.

Experiments are fun, but the results aren't always what you're expecting. I froze one of the fillets in six ounce chunks so I can think about what to do with it. I ate the other fillet and just finished the last of it this morning. I made a sandwich with my homemade sourdough bread, a slab of the salmon, baby swiss cheese, cream cheese, grilled onions, red bell pepper, and jalepeno peppers, and capers. It was quite good despite the dryness.

Sounds like an interesting experiment. I made a off site smoker something like the smoke daddy and plan to do some cold smoking once the weather cools down. I plan on piping it in the drain hole and try some light long smokes. Fish and cheese are on the menu, but that won't happen when it's 90 degrees plus all the time.

Yep, I want to build a cold-smoker too. What I'd really like is a heavy-duty firebox like you'd find on a Gator-Pit or similar, but just the SFB as I don't have a use for the whole smoker. Then I'd hook that up with flexible stovepipe to a small smokehouse that I'd build out of lumber.

I'm behind on various projects as it is, so there's no telling when I might get around to it.