Sweet Smoked Salmon - Pron

Found a good deal on Salmon filets. Should have bought more:

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The brine was 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, 1/2 cup terbinado, and two heaping Tbs of Hawaiian sea salt to a quart of water:

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The un-trimmed filet. Hence the low price:

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The cleaned-up filet. Skinned it, trimmed it, and removed the pin bones and cut out as much of the blood line as I could on the skin side:

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Cut into portions:

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Into the brine and covered with a plate to keep the portions submerged. Placed in fridge overnight. Brine time was about 20 hours:

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Placed brined filets on paper towels over old Bullsheet pages to dry for 3 hours in the open air. Made sure there were no flies in the house before leaving for a few hours. This step is important as it allows for a pellicle to form on the fish.

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Into the Big Chief electric smoker. I've had this thing at least 25 years and only needed to order a new pan once. This smoker is my dedicated fish smoker as I don't want fish oils or any such seasoning in my other pits. It's worked great over the years. I have no idea what temp. this thing runs at. I know the flavor wood does generate additional heat at is burns down. Today, we went through a pan and a half of apple wood chips and the outside temp was 70:

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The finished product after 3 hours in the smoker minus the belly pieces lost to the chef while checking for doneness.:grin: I decided to glaze and thought to myself "why not use the brine?" So, I reduced 2 cups of the leftover brine down to a syrup. Never tried this before but the syrup actually was tasty. Sweet, salty and a little fishy. It probably would have been too salty if more salt had been used for the brine. Bring to a low boil and skim a few times to remove foam and flotsam. Be careful as it boils over easily.:clap2:

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Bagged two for the freezer and one for later in the week minus all the snacking this day:redface:

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Thanks for checking out my post.

White Stuff

Greenhornet said:

I believe 140 is about the temp max, if you see a white substance emerging from the fish it's too hot.

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In the three pieces that had fissures, the white stuff formed in the fissures after two hours. I figured they had reached 140 but just knew from experience that I needed to cook longer. There's no way to control the heat in these smokers. Here's a great review that's pretty much spot on about these smokers:

http://bbq.about.com/od/smoker_user_reviews/gr/Big-Chief-Front-Load-Smoker.htm