Smoked Salmon

Smoked Salmon (Final Recipe)

The experiments are completed. The best recipe I found is all that’s left.

The following is my results from smoking 8 batches of Salmon caught in Upstate New York. I experimented with many different ways to see what worked best for me. My variations included cold smoking for 3 hours before putting them in my MES, smoking with & without skin on, with & without water in pan, with apple juice in pan, with apple wood, with cherry wood, with hickory wood. I tried going hot right away, and I tried taking heat up gradually. I tried a few different mixtures in my brine.
I have also read that there are two ways to eliminate parasites that are said to be in all fish. You must either cook the fish to over 160 degrees, or freeze for at least 30 days at Zero degrees or below. Since I only want to smoke my Salmon & not cook them, I chose to freeze mine to 0 degrees for 30 days or more before smoking.

The following is what seemed to be the best of my first 7 batches, and my eighth batch was a duplicate of the best of the first 7 batches to confirm that it was indeed the best. It was!
The Salmon I smoked were caught in Upstate New York, in a tributary of the Salmon River, near Pulaski, NY. They were all from Salmon approximately 30" to 36" long. The fillets at their thickest point were about 1 1/2" thick.

This will be the recipe and instructions I will follow for smoking Salmon from this day forward:

I discarded all other notes, because this is the best:

Thaw fillets, remove skin, cut the fillets lengthwise right down the middle and cut these strips into 7" or 8" lengths (usually 1/3 of the length of the fillet).
Put these pieces into the following brine:

Brine:
Put 1/2 quart of apple juice in a pot on the stove, bringing to low boil & then down to simmer.
Add to this;
6 ounces of soy sauce
1/2 cup of non-iodized salt
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 tsp of Garlic powder
1/2 tsp of Onion powder
1/2 tsp of Cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp of Dried Bay Leaf Flakes (or 2 or 3 fresh bay leaves)

Stir until salt is dissolved. Then add 1 1/2 quarts of water & ice to cool quickly.

Leave the Salmon pieces submerged in this brine for 6 hours in fridge. Overnight was too long. 4 hours was not long enough.
On Edit due to further testing, I will change the lengths of time to keep pieces of fish in the above brine:
Pieces thicker than 1/2" should be in brine for 6 hours.
Pieces 1/2" thick or less should only be in brine for 4 hours.

After removing from brine, rinse each piece well, pat dry, and lay on paper towels.

Get however many smoker racks you will need. My batches just fit on three racks. Spray each rack with Pam to limit the amount the fish will stick to the racks. Dry the thickest pieces one at a time again with paper towels, and put these pieces on one rack. Dry the thinnest pieces, and put them on a different rack. Dry the rest of the pieces, and put them on a third rack. I put the three racks in my extra fridge overnight (uncovered) to dry & form pellicle.

The next day: (Time to smoke the Salmon)
Put the rack with thinnest pieces on top position of your smoker, medium on next position, and thickest on third position.
NO water in water pan.
Exhaust vent fully opened.
Put meat probe in center of thickest piece of fish.
Set smoker to 100 degrees.
Put hickory chips & a couple chunks of Hickory in smoking pan.
During smoking, when smoke stops, add Apple chips & chunks.
Use Hickory only for first couple hours.
I try for a light to medium smoke with my MES.
A little burst of heavy smoke doesn't seem to hurt.
Don't need any smoke after first 4 hours.

Note: If I would have had an AMNPS at the time I smoked this Salmon, I would have filled it, lit one end, and put smoke on it for the whole time it was in my smoker.

Keep smoker at 100 for about one hour.
One hour later, bump temp up to 120--------My internal is about 76
One half hour later, bump to 140--------------My internal is about 98
One half hour later, bump to 160--------------My internal is about 113
One half hour later, bump to 180--------------My internal is about 124
One hour later, bump to 200-------------------My internal is about 134*

Remove pieces as they go above 145 internal.
How long this takes doesn't matter, just so they go over 145.
Some of mine have gone up to over 160, and it didn't hurt.
If you have to, you can bump your smoker up to 200, but no higher.

Let the pieces cool for an hour or more in an open top plastic bowl.
Put the bowl in a fridge overnight (uncovered) to cool & air out.

Next day, dump pieces out on paper towels, wipe surface moisture off of each piece, and vacuum pack a couple pieces in each pack. Mark date & freeze packs.

Thawing before eating:
After freezing & thawing, the pieces have a lot of moisture on their surfaces. I found that the best thing to do is rinse each piece quickly, and wipe each piece dry with paper towels. Any piece from that pack that isn’t eaten immediately should be wrapped loosely in a paper towel, and stored in the refrigerator. After the first day or two, you can put the leftover thawed pieces in a baggie to keep from getting too dry. These pieces should keep in the refrigerator for at least 4 or 5 days. I never had any left thawed out longer than that, so I don’t know how much longer they’ll keep in the fridge.