r/smokingfish

I know this isn't necessarily traditional to this group but I thought I’d share it anyway! smoking salmon is one of my favorite parts of early fall, We let the salmon strips smoke for a solid 8-10 hours with medium to light smoke. 🐟

(edited to describe the process, Thanks for all the questions!)

First, we fillet the salmon with the tails attached and soak them in a brine of salt and brown sugar for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. You can let it sit for as long or as little as you'd like, and feel free to be creative with what you put in the brine as well. Sometimes we add pineapple juice.

Then we hang them to dry with a fan on them until they're tacky so the smoke will “stick.” This takes around 5–6 hours. Once they're tacky, we cut them into strips and start putting smoke and mild heat on them. We usually smoke them for around 6–12 hours, but you can do longer or shorter depending on what you prefer. Once they're done smoking, we cut them into jar-sized strips and pack the jars.

We pressure cook the salmon because the fish still isn't fully cooked at this point, and it's not exactly good to eat uncooked salmon lol. We pressure cook them for 90 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. As for shelf life, I've eaten jars that are 10+ years old. As long as they're still sealed and look right, I'd say they're good. But also, take this with a grain of salt because I'm not sure what the official regulations are for this type of thing. I just go by what I was taught, and I very well could just be one of the lucky ones.

The smoker is my own design based on many found online, brick fireplace, double walled insulated alder walls

I will be removing the scales & bones, how do you smoke these? I know folks typically aim for a cold smoke but these are poisonous unless brought up to at least 170 for a few minutes due to thiaminese

Used a mix of mesquite lump charcoal and some pimento wood, I think it was a little hot for the small size of the nuggets but turned out well for a first attempt!

My only alterations to this recipe is I add a couple of table spoons of Cholula hot sauce and I replace the water with apple juice.

I also soak my wood chips in apple juice. It gives a nice caramelized finish and a sweetness to match the heat and smoke flavors. Wood is a mix of hickory , oak , pecan and apple.

I've found that white fish like sheepshead, grunts, porgies need way more soak time in brine for penetration. But for macks 24-36 hours is plenty.

I get these in 600-800' of water off the Oregon Coast. Extremely oily, which you can see on some of the pieces in the photo.

I do a roughly 1 day dry brine of kosher salt, brown sugar and Hungarian Paprika. I smoked this batch on pecan wood. The salt pulls a lot of the moisture out, which is very necessary with this fish. I actually have started doing some sort of brine prior to cooking it via any method since it helps with the texture so much. Incredible fish, smoked or not, just benefits from removing some moisture.

https://preview.redd.it/z4jo0fx0w6jh1.png?width=668&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7ef0c50fdd76b9d0d66155ed3e661fffadbcd29

Filets to brined to dried to smoked! These ones were defiantly on the drier side once cooked but it’s the way my dad likes em so made this batch for him.

Can eat it with cheese and crackers, on a bagel, or make it into dip.

Apple smoked at 190 F for 2.5 hours.

Memories from my childhood reimagined. My grandfather used to smoke perch in a barrel over of fresh juniper branches. These were done on a propane smoker using juniper wood chips. Tasted almost as good as the memory!

Very happy how these turned out.

Top right is the piece I didn't rinse after brining. I thought the pellicle could turn out uneven but it turned out fine.

Recipe: https://www.reddit.com/r/smokingfish/s/N055SCmq3n

Smoked eel again yesterday. Have you guys ever tried smoking eel? It’s pretty popular among smokers here in the Netherlands. I think it’s one of the best fish to smoke, along with salmon, because of its high fat content.

Smoked this steelhead on my GMG Trek with Smokai tube. Absolutely fantastic!

This weeks catch. Black cherry dry brine. Sweet chili and bourbon glazed.

Going with the salmon deluxe recipe but trying pecan chips instead of alder.

A few people suggested not rinsing off with water after brining, so I decided to test that out with the top left piece. It seems more waterlogged than the others, but I can also tell seasonings stuck to its surface better. Interested to see how it turns out.

Will post the final product in a few hours (I can participate in my own photo contest, right?🤣)