Smoked Salmon - light on sugar and salt

[Coley Archie]

Sounds like a great way to go. What internal temp. is "cooked through"?

[K Kruger]

~135. But I never bother temping.

[Larry Corall]

I use pretty much this same recipe for salmon minus the savory. I've always (for over 30 years) used the water or maybe a little apple or cranberry juice and brined overnight before smoking. Last couple of times I've mixed my ingredients dry and have cured overnight. I've found that I like the curing process better than the brine.

[r benash]

Thanks for all the detail and sharing the results. Going to give this a try as I have the same sentiment the times that I have done salmon this way (too much sugar).

One question though in this statement - is the order AFA strength of the different salts correct? I thought it would be in the order of

Diamond Crystal, Mortons, Table Salt from weakest to strongest? I think Morton and DC are switched in the recipe:

plus 2 tablespoons of water with a scant 4 tablespoons Morton kosher (or a scant 3 of DC or a scant 2 of table salt)

Note from Moderator: This error has been corrected at the top of this thread.

[K Kruger]

Correct. Apparently I inadvertently reversed the two. It should read 2 T of table salt, or 3 of Morton or 4 of Diamond.

Note from Moderator: This error has been corrected at the top of this thread.

[ShawnW]

I've smoked beef, pork and chicken... never fish and I love Salmon.

I'm gonna do this!

[ryanburns]

I have gotten the same response about the best smoked salmon ever before also. I think the thing that makes it so good vs. store bought is it's freshness. You just can't get that with some vacuumed sealed stuff from the store. Every year during the salmon run I smoke close to 20 pounds of it.

[r benash]

I have gotten the same response about the best smoked salmon ever before also. I think the thing that makes it so good vs. store bought is it's freshness. You just can't get that with some vacuumed sealed stuff from the store. Every year during the salmon run I smoke close to 20 pounds of it.

What you said. There's no way that I know of to match the experience of fresh caught within hours same day fish/shell fish cooks. Nothing, no how.

Do it every year - catch fresh do the "within hours cook" then save some of the catch for later.

NOTHING matches the cooks on that first hours later effort.

Only thing better is sushi on the boat. Seriously.

It' a seafood thing. It degrades quickly. Others smarter than me can perhaps expalin better.

That said, fresh caught cleaned quickly and saved seafood later on is the "second best' and will always be better than what you get at the fish counter.

And there are some fresh fish counters that I like, use and swear buy.

Just saying fresh/self caught seafood anything prepped, cooked, eaten within hours or less off the trip will ALWAYS be better - period. And nostalgia has nothing to do with it, except the self caught part - but leave that out and I stand by my statement.

[Carlos Gregory]

Love this site ...I'm all over this salmon smoke soon .... thanks

[Mark Wilson]

Anyone use cedar plank as smoking wood????