Hey everyone! Like Zeb I am new to the business. Have been in the seafood game for over 20 years, but decided to strike out on my own. A little scary!! I opened a seafood market in June of 2003. At first I was having the butcher shop next door to my store smoke all my fish, but I really was not too impressed with the quality of the end product. I stopped doing that, and started buying pre-smoked products from my fish suppliers. Ouch!! The product is very expensive. Plus, this gave me no outlet for product that was getting a little old. I am very quality oriented, so I only sell extremely fresh product. I found I was thowing away alot of money. I bought a CS 160 about three months ago. I am still playing with it every week. I have learned alot on my own through trial and error, but I still am not sure if I'm doing things right.
I have a few questions that I need answered. First, what, if any, are the advantages of wet brining. Second, if I do need to wet brine, how long is long enough. I'll see one article say 15 minutes per LB., for example, and another article say 1 hour per LB. That's a huge difference! At what point does the brining process stop? Or does it? Thirdly, I find that as I add more product to the smoker, the results are'nt as good. Is there any way to determine the optimum time/temp for different size loads? I know I have asked a lot of questions, but I need to get some advise from someone with much more experience than I have.
I do like my smoker, but I bought it to help me make money!! Any words of wisdom out there?
RGS,
Afishionado
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