Smoked Salmon

[branches]

So I have been smoking salmon and steelhead for many years. I usually do a dry brine in a Tupperware container for about 24 hours and then rinse in cold water and dry the fillets and put in my big chief smoker for around 6 to 20 hours depending on the amount of fish and how thick they are. What I do not do consistently is cut the fillets the same length. I have smoked fillets full length and I have smoked them as small as 1/2 inch strips. I have found that when I cut the fillets in 3 inch strips I get the best product. We just caught a few fish to smoke and the first batch was 3 inch strips and the second batch was a entire fillet. The 3 inch strips came out 10X better than the entire fillet. I would like to get the entire fillet to come out like the strips. Is it just that I need a longer brine time for the full fillet?

[PolarBear]

Try cutting hash marks 1/2 the way through every 2-3" in the fillet to let the brine and smoke get in there better. 

[Alchase]

Try cutting hash marks 1/2 the way through every 2-3" in the fillet to let the brine and smoke get in there better. 

 

Works great!

[branches]

Thank you for the help. I am going to brine a couple of fillets 6 hours longer than the others. I will cut hash marks in the rest of the fillets of this smoking batch and see how they come out. I will know the outcome in a couple of days.

[skidynastar33]

Another thing I just started doing that was a game changer, was before I put it in the smoker I left it out under a fan for like 2 hours. It got a good skin in it and kept the oils in better when smoked

[PolarBear]

 
That's a big key in getting it right. I rince, pat dry then put a fan on them as well. It makes a huge difference. I have around 15 coho and 10 steelhead that I need to get in the smoker from last fall and winter. Fall fishing is upon us!!

[spddmn6]

I also do a dry brine. I like it way better than wet. I do hash marks like a couple of other posts above but slightly different. I like to call it a candy bar cut. It doesn't make a difference on how big the fillets are if you make consistent 1 to 1 1/2" slices right down to the skin going all the way down the fillet. It will kinda five the appearance of a bunch of candy bars when you are done. This will give more surface area for flavor and slightly faster dry time in the smoker. Since there is more surface area it can add time while waiting for the pellicule to form though. So I just use a fan to circulate air over the drying salmon to help with that if I am in a hurry. It also makes it easier to portion out when going to vacuum seal the goodness.