Its that time of year, the weather is just right for smoking salmon. I just pulled a good 35 lbs of white king out of the freezer and 4 sockeye fillets, got em dethawing right now. Brought the fish back from prince William sound, so this is copper river sockeye and white king.
Pretty simple traditional hard smoke recipe
3 parts brown sugar
One part rock salt ( I got some water softener salt from the farm supply store- 7$ for 40 lbs)
Garlic powder and maybe a little cayenne (I don't use either)
Take a bucket and throw down a layer of the sugar/salt mix, then fish skin up, cover with salt/sugar and repeat until all the fish is buried
Let it sit a few days till all the sugar/salt is dissolved, no need to refrigerate
Soak in fresh water for half a day or more to remove the excess salt ( important)
Smoke for 20-36 hours with no heat. Should keep for a couple months in the fridge if done right....this king is thick, so I might have to do 48+ hours... We will see! My smoke times are off because I went from a home made smoker to an electric
This method uses no heat what so ever and can not be done in a smoker like a little chief or similar smokers, it might be possible due to the cold weather, but I wouldn't advise it
I use a Bradley, so it's gonna smoke at 30 deg or whatever the outside temp is, this is a cold/hard smoke. The white king is soooo oily, we weren't able to vacuum pack it when we smoked some this past summer in Alaska, the oil from the fish got into the machine and it wouldn't seal, it was incredible, and tasted soooo good, it melted like butter in your mouth even though it was smoked for 30 hours
For the pickled sockeye, I'm gonna start by salting it for a week, same method as above, but with pure salt and nothing else.....I'll keep this updated...
Also gonna try a tiny batch of smoked smelt.... I caught a dozen today, so, that's a perfect test batch
I'm picky about how fish is smoked.... Too often people use things like yoshidas, teriyaki, too much sweet stuff, too much spice, things that hide the natural flavor of the fish oils and the smoke, and then they cook it with smoke ( that's what your little chiefs do) and it doesn't turn out right..... I guess it's because I grew up on a reservation, and saw the traditional way of smoking in a huge smokehouse with a small alder fire beneath.... I learned from the natives and my grandpa who spent most of his life in the back woods of BC and Alaska running remote logging camps where he learned from the natives, this method is the old school way of salmon....simple, and traditional, often overlooked by the hot smoke and over flavored varieties most often found today....
