Tips and Tidbits
How to Make a Delicious Smoked Salmon
There's nothing quite like the taste of smoked salmon, and believe it or not, salmon is one of the easiest smoked delicacies to create. All you need is a smoker, some simple ingredients, and of course, a fish or two.
Just how you arrive at different flavors of smoked salmon depends on a handful of factors: 1) the brine you use to prepare the salmon for smoking, 2) the temperature at which you smoke the fish, 3) the duration you leave the fish in the smoker, and 4) the type of wood you use. Of course, there are also subtle differences in the way various salmon species taste, and the size of the fish or thickness of the meat also dictate flavor.
When we talk about smoking fish, we're really talking about two different processes: one is hot smoking (with temperatures between 140 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit) and the other is cold smoking (with temperatures typically under 100 degrees Fahrenheit). A lot of commercially-smoked salmon is cold-smoked. Perhaps the best smoked salmon you could ever try is a "three-day smoke" of king salmon, smoked on alder wood by Yu'pik Eskimos in Alaska (that's as traditional as it gets). But most of us don't have three days to smoke fish, nor the special equipment needed to cold smoke properly, so we'll talk about hot smoking here.
You prepare your fish by soaking it in brine. A brine should consist of salt water (it might only be salt water), about one teaspoon per cup of water in concentration. You can also add other flavors in the brine: fennel, garlic, dill, chili pepper, onion, and so forth are good matches for salmon. Soak your fresh fish fillets or chunks in your brine solution in a covered container in your refrigerator for at least a few hours but no more than a day.
Take the fish out of the brine and air-dry it before you put it in the smoker.
When you're ready to smoke, try to get the smoker temperature around 150 degrees for starters. Classic smoking woods like hickory, apple wood, mesquite, and so forth are good choices. You want to steer clear of coniferous, softer woods.
Have your fish smoke at that lower temperature for an hour or so; this is when most of the smoky flavor will sink into the meat. You might then gradually increase the temperature for another hour to finish the process. It should take a few hours for the meat to reach a firmness and consistency that indicates it is cooked through and properly smoked.
From there, plate it and serve. But if you vacuum seal the smoked fish and put it in the freezer, it will last for months.
