Looking for fish smoking brine or rub

[slicbob]

Does anyone have a recipe for smoking salmon pre treatment? Please email me at slicbob@yahoo.com

Thanks in advance.

Bob

[littleriver]

I tried a bunch of different things but my wife would always complain about the final
product being too salty...

Last summer I was bumming around with her at Neah Bay.. on that day there was some kind of yearly festival thing for
the Makahs and we were having a good time just chatting with the locals and enjoying the sunny weather...

She sees a booth where one of the men is smoking salmon and is immediately drawn in that direction...

I watched him smoke the fish and talked with him a little about the technique and it's really simple...

but I think the key was that he started with a really high quality coho salmon skin on fillet...

he didn't even scale the fish.... he would just sprinkle a little garlic on the meat side and pop it in the smoker
for about 20 minutes and presto.. it's done.... my wife still raves about it and says it's the best smoked salmon she's ever had....


I know... technically it really wasn't "smoked" salmon... it's probably more accurately described at "smoke cooked" salmon..


but I got some alder and figured out how to duplicate the process with my little weber out back..... Trick is to
start some charcoal briquets on one side of the weber and get them going real good.... then I drop some alder branches on top of the briquets and get them burning real good..... at this point I put the top on and open the vent all the way......

when the smoke is pouring out of the vent I pop the garlic sprinkled "skin on fillets" skin side down on the opposite side of the grill from where the coals and the alder is smoking.... It takes about 20 minutes and you got as good a smoked salmon as you can get anywhere......

[bigastrout]

I really like the Lure Jensen Trout & Salmon Brine Mix. I know its not home made but I always get compliments on the finished product. I tried several times to make my own but it was never right. I mix two packages brine mix with 2 quarts water. I like to smoke cleaned fish in the 5-6 pound range. I cut them into 4 inch lengths and freeze them solid scales bones and all... I don't fillet them. I will then place the frozen fish portions in a rubbermaid tub with lid, and cover them in the brine. I put that in the fridge for 24 hours. The fish will thaw and suck up the brine. When I remove the fish from the brine I pat it good and dry with paper towels. I use a little chief smoker to do the smoking. I found out the hard way that you dont need smoke for the entire process. 4 pans of chips is plenty of flavoring. If you burn chips the whole time the fish will be way to smokey and unedible. I generally run 2 pans of apple chips and 2 pans of alder chips and then the rest of the time the fish is just cooking. It takes me 16 to 20 hours to get the fish to the correct firmness so I start the process in the evening and let it run all night and most of the next day. I have also found when using the little chief smoker that wraping a heavy blaket over and around the smoker helps speed the process on cool or windy days. Every smokers is a little different so its sort of a trial and error process. Your finished product will get better each time so dont give up. Good luck I hope this helps you.:chef:

[Bodofish]

If anyone is interested in learning to smoke fish lets get together for a beer and I'll impart all of my knowledge. I ran a commecial salmon smoking and packing operation for 2 years. Everything from lox and gravlox to squaw candy and everything in between. Hot smoke, cold smoke......... I'm in the Woodinville Bothell area.

[gpc]

On the WDFW web site if you go to the fishing shell fishing section and go to the recipes there is a video on that shows you how to brine salmon. Its a dry brine, something I never knew existed. It looks a lot cleaner and easier than a wet brine. Defiantly worth checking out. I have a really good teriyaki brine, but it will take a me a little while to find it. We've used it for salmon, trout, and panfish, but we mostly use for trout and salmon. When I find it Ill post it

[tnj8222]

dry brines work alot faster than wet. i have tried that lure jensen brine but i didnt care for it. but im gonna have to give it another try, i was using frozen fish and it was pretty mushy when it thawed, although i found out later they were farm fish so thats probably why i didnt like it.

[bigastrout]

dry brines work alot faster than wet. i have tried that lure jensen brine but i didnt care for it. but im gonna have to give it another try, i was using frozen fish and it was pretty mushy when it thawed, although i found out later they were farm fish so thats probably why i didnt like it.

I knew I would catch at least a little grief for my post on Lure Jensen brine. LOL I think that making good smoked fish is not just in the brine, the chips or the fish you use. It is a colaboration of all the things you do during the process. If one thing is "off" the end product won't be right. The trick is to figure out what part of the process caused the problem and change it and only it. If you change everything you might just have a whole new set of problems and you will be no closer to great smoked fish than you were the first time.

[Lou]

Last year during our great sockey season, we tried out this recipe found on the Salmon University website that worked great. Don't think we'd change the formula at all.

http://www.salmonuniversity.com/rs_htss01_index.html