[muttfishr]

I havn't caught a salmon sense they closed the season down coupla years ago, (so I went and bought it)

a 20" fish, welcome to my fillet knife

cut your fillets into "hand sized" pieces

prepare your (brine) in this case 1/2 cup salt, 1 cup brown sugar in a quart jar

Fill with warm water and disolve







put the fish skin side down on the bottom and skin side up on the top of a tupperware tub pour in the brine, snap on the lid and referigate for 24 hours

Remove from fridge and wash off the brine in cold water facuet place fish on a board to air dry (glaze) add any "special" seasonings while flesh is wet, I put black pepper on half and cayenne pepper on the other half, garlic powder is good too, but be careful, alittle spice goes along way, I suggest trying the fish without any spice untill you've done the recipe a couple of times

Let the fish air dry (glaze) untill its dry to the touch

Get some wood chips, in this case Hickory, but any smoking use wood will do

I use about three handfuls of chips in tinfoil

and make a pouch, poke holes all over the top side

I use a coffee can full of charcoal (more is not needed)

while the coals are burning place the fish on the smoker rack(s)

When the coals are ready place the pouch of wood chips directly on the coals, assembly the smoker and wait about 6 hours. I useally load it up before bed and by morning she's ready for Lox-n-scrambled eggs for breakfast, smoked salmon crumbled over a tossgreen salad for lunch, smoked salmon and honey mustard on crackers for dinner! Antisipation, its makeing me waittttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

More to come tomarrow...mutt.

[MsCMSchultz]

TY!

[mlazar80]

well done mutt, except I prefer to use kosher salt or non-iodized salt to eliminate any chance of a metallic taste from the iodized salt...

[IRPescador]

Thanks!!
So, no need to wet the wood chips?

[rockcrab62]

Great post! That's pretty much how I do it when I smoke eels, except add some maple syrup to the brine, I use pickling salt, and I soak the wood chips before.

[muttfishr]

Ooooh, I just unloaded the smoker and WoW, that cayenne fish, OH WOW! Goood stuff Manny! I'll post up some pics when I get home from work, as far as the salt goes, yes plain is better ect. When I use Iodized I cut the amount in half or more, I just used what I had available, when useing a less fatty fish less salt is also called for and you may want to cut out the brown sugar, My wife likes it when I squeese lemon juice on the white fleshed fish before it glazes over. There are many ways to do this, After many trial and eatings, this is what I've found works for me...mutt.

[IRPescador]

Man I need to get me a smoker!

Can hardly wait for the other pics

[flyingfool]

looks good! ive heard of people making smokers out of old dishwashers. any one of you guys have some info on that?

[Salvelinus]

about to try smoking my first bit of salmon

yesterday i bought a electric cooktop burner and a steel pie pan, threw both into the bottom of my old weber kettle.
have had some alder chips (pretty small chips, not sawdust though) soaking since i went to sleep last night

got 2 nice pieces of some wild caught sockeye, was bringing since around 3pm yesterday, salt warm water and brown sugar. now its got like 20 minutes left curing under the fan. cant wait, hopefully i dont blow it. im thinking it will take somewhere between 1 and 2 hours

[muttfishr]

Good Luck, don't get in too much of a Big hurry, give it time to finish cooking/drying, depending on how much heat your getting out of that electric coil, useally lower/slower is better, thats the trouble with charcoal, gets too hot and cooks the fish more than drying it, so ya use less charcoal and its not hot long enough, practice makes perfect, hope all works well for ya...mutt.

[Salvelinus]

I suprised myself with the salmon, came out really really tasty. cant quite remember but i think the temp in the smoker is around 140, maybe 150. still a bit moist on the inside, not dried out, with great color. very happy with the way it came out

[muttfishr]

SKOR! DUDE!! Now your gonna be hook'ed!!! Dang that stuff is good!...mutt.

[bigunindaboat]

[ucscrab]

any tips on smoking salmon on a charcoal grill? I got my woodchips and mesquite/regular charcoal, but how would you work this on a regular charcoal grill?

I was thinking move all the woodchips and charcoal onto one side and put the salmon indirectly on the other side.

Any tips would be appreciated

[ucscrab]

Wow. where can I find a winco? I've never seen sockeye for 4 dollar a pound