Frozen wild Salmon

I'm no expert,but the flash frozen wild,is usually far superior.

The farm raised is ok to hot smoke,but usually not worth the effort to brine,etc.

Just my $0.02

Frozen is fine, won't affect smoked salmon. However with no skin on it could be very hard to make it stay together.
I only eat wild Pacific Salmon but that's because I go to British Columbia fishing every year. Wild salmon is far superior to farmed Atlantic salmon and much healthier and unfortunatly much more expensive. The area I fish has alot of salmon farms for Atlantic salmon (very contriversial in BC) and although the water is very clean due to strong tides they are fed pellets and chemicals that aren't good for ya. Here's a recipe I found 6 or 7 years ago and I get lot's of compliments on it.

Step 1: Prepare fish
Filet salmon, skin on, remove ALL bones.
Step 2: Uniform strips
Cut filets in to uniform strips 1" and 3-6 inches long or as long as your racks can handle. Key is uniform thickness.
Step 3: Brining
Soak in brine for 12-18 hrs. I use an Igloo type cooler and throw in a bunch of ice cubes and use something to put on top to hold the meat in the brine.
1 gallon water
1 Qt teriyaki or soy sauce
1 cup pickling salt
2lbs brown sugar
2 Tbsp garlic powder
3 Tbsp cayenne pepper
Step 4: Glazing
Lay the fish on cookie/drying racks, make sure they don't touch and put them in the fridge or a cold garage for about 12hrs. This method or many others will form a hard pellicle on the fish. You can sprinkle on certain spices during this if you like (cayenne, pepper etc)
Step 5: Smoking
100-120 degrees for 1-2 hrs
140 degrees for 2-4 hrs
175 degrees for 1-2 hrs
I use the longer times for thicker pieces or a large batch. I've never had a bad batch even with longer times than I should have used.
For my first batch in the cookshack I used 5 small chips (about quarter size and ¼ inch thick) of apple wood and for me it was a little to strong of smoke flavor so next time I'll probably try it with just 1 or 2 chips.

You might try putting skinless filets on parchment paper to smoke to keep them from falling apart...

quote:

Originally posted by d. merrell:
You might try putting skinless filets on parchment paper to smoke to keep them from falling apart...

Agreed, skinless could be interesting on the regular grates.

I saw a consumer program on the local news here on the coast.. they said much of what is sold at markets as wild salmon is actually farm raised. I missed the part that said what to look for to tell the difference.. must be on the label somewhere.

I do lots of fish on my 009. about two years ago I started skinning all my salmon first then put on my seafood grills. I started by accident (alcohol related) but it works quite well. I do both farm raised and wild..

gary

I always smoke my salmon with the skin removed, and I've never had a problem with the fillets falling apart. They'll be fine on the regular Cookshack grates.

Even delicate trout fillets hold together well once they form a light pellicle on the surface.