I haven’t written in quite some time now, since life has been on the crazy side lately. We haven’t smoked much the past year or so, with the exception of the usual pork shoulders when we have found it on sale. We recently found Kroger had salmon on sale for a good price and picked up a few filets. We found a recipe that called for it to be cured for 12 hours, have the cure rinsed off then put in the fridge for 12 hours. After the 24 hour period, you let it sit at room temp for 1-4 hours and smoke. Our plan was to cure it Saturday into Sunday and smoke it Sunday evening. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate Sunday and we were not able to smoke because the rain hitting the smoker will cause issues keeping the smoker temperature consistent. Finally, the weather cleared yesterday and we were able to smoke the salmon when we got home from work. It wasn’t a bad smoke at all.
The directions called for an hour smoke at 200˚ using alderwood chips. We haven’t seen a local source for those chips and haven’t used them yet, so we do not know how the smoke flavor would be with those chips. We had hickory chips on hand and decided to use those instead. the directions said to smoke at 200˚, but the smoker used only goes down to 225˚, so that was the temp smoked at. I figured it’s take less time since the temp was a little higher, but that is not always the case, as I am learning. The salmon smoked for an hour and 10 minutes at 225˚ to reach an internal temp of 150˚.
Now, I am not a salmon fan. It usually tastes too fishy to me. This salmon though, turned out fairly well. I still noticed a hint of fishyness, but it wasn’t offputting like it normally is. It was salty though. We think because we let it sit too long before cooking it, although we had rinsed the cure off. We think the salt penetrated the fish and kept making it saltier even after it was rinsed. We will try this again and watch the weather closer so we can smoke it closer to when it needs to be smoked than a couple days later.
We also found brisket on sale at Kroger. It has been awhile since we found it for a good price and I have been wanting to smoke brisket again. It has been a few years since our last brisket smoke. Stay tuned as we will fire up the smoker and get a brisket going within the next couple weeks.
Smoking Meats and Recipies 