When smoking large fillets, which I hardly ever do except for special gift packages, having the skin off makes for a better presentation. Furthermore it is easier to serve for guests to eat. Then I put a weighted grid on top of the meat to keep it all under the brine, mixing it up every so often. Sequentially in that order, or are there 3 choices for different outcomes? Yes, they are meant to be used sequentially in the order printed.
For example, if I see the temp is rising slower than I want, I go longer. If rising too fast — less time. Silvers are shorter cause they tend to be less oily, where kings my personal favorite go longer and slightly hotter. If you tend to be OCD about smoking, they are a pretty reliable objective to use until you get your own rhythm….
Mix all ingredients in a non-metal container. Make sure that the salt and sugar are completely dissolved. Leaving the skin on, sprinkle a coat of meat cure on the flesh side of salmon. The cure should be heavier on the thicker portion of the salmon, thinner as you get closer to the tail.
Save your extra meat cure for another day. I do not recommend going much longer than 24hrs, it should not be necessary and the longer the fish cures, the more salty it gets. One note, smoking salmon is about timelines and so you have to fit it into your available schedule. I generally put mine in overnight and then resume the smoking the next morning.
Once the salmon has cured overnight, remove the container from the fridge and you will notice a thick brown sugar water mixture in there because the water has been drawn out of the salmon.
At this point what you need to do is rinse each piece under cold water to wash off the extra external salt. You do not want to have lots of coarse salt on the salmon fillets that will make it way too salty to go ahead with the rinsing.
Lay out all the pieces onto paper towel and give them a pat down to dry. After that, you need to dry the fish on racks preferably in cool place, or under a fan, for 2 hours. This process forms a pellicle, a sort of rubbery outer skin on each piece and this helps to keep the fish moist through the smoking, and, the smoke will also adhere. A tip, if you are using a Bradley Smoker, is to lay down some paper towels on your kitchen table, then put your Bradley Smoker trays on top of those, but put the trays upside down.
This will create a one inch air gap underneath and that will make for the best air flow and drying process. The trays can go into the smoker upside down just fine so this is a great move! At this time you also have the option to spray your trays with a non stick cooking spray, oil, butter, or, to just put the salmon on straight. The spray is not mandatory the fish might stick a bit but generally they do not stick too bad.
So it is your choice. Go ahead and put your fish fillets on top of the upside down trays, and, you should also check your pieces for any residual water. If there are surface cracks with water pockets, use your paper towel to blot that dry. Leave the fish on the trays for about 2 hours to dry. If you have a ceiling fan or any fan put that on the fish to help the drying process. Now that you have had your salmon air drying for 2 hours it is time to spark up the smoker!
You can use many kinds of smoking chips for making smoked salmon. Fruit tree woods are recommended for salmon, as is alder. Some woods like mesquite and hickory are not recommended for salmon because of their strong flavors, these are best reserved for smoking ribs. With the fish in the smoker now, you want to run a three stage smoking process, two hours at low approx.
This three stage process will ensure that you do not rapidly overheat your smoked salmon. When salmon overheats you will see some yellow substance oozing out of the fish and this ideally would stay inside it contributes to the flavor and moisture of the fish.
By raising the heat slowly over 6 hours, the fish should not overheat too much, and the moisture will stay inside. It is inevitable that you will find some of the yellow on the surface but that is usually to be expected. The secret ingredient for this recipe is a little bit of maple syrup.
This is optional but it gives the smoked salmon just a little extra kick. Sprinkle cure heavily and evenly on the fillet.
Use enough cure so that the cure does not wet out in the oil. Sprinkle a moderate amount of desired spices over fillet.
Rub the spices and cure lightly into the fillet including any cut surfaces. Sprinkle a moderate amount of coarse black pepper onto the fillet.
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