Cold smoked salmon šŸ£ (lox) in about 2 days


 
I am fairly certain that if you used enough salt the product becomes " cooked " after the brine........you eat it without cooking it too much right?
Anyways.....if you had a table fan, I find the pellicle can be obtained pretty quickly while the salmon sits on the counter...and of course it won't spoil because of the brine. Last time I used the fan I believe I had it there for about 3 hours.....if I remember right.
I did it that way for a long time but those table fans apparently have a short life span.
I did use the fridge this past weekend.
Thought if you weren't aware it could save you some time if you ran into a time issue.

Not sure the limits on salt.....I use plenty though 4 to 1, 4 cups of brown sugar to 1 cup of salt.
The goal is to not salt preserve it like fish was preserved before refrigeration.

The rub really is to remove moisture and the salt and sugars add flavor. The real issue is length of brine. Iā€™ve found 24 hours to be perfect for my brine recipe.

When I started this years back, I did a 3 day brine. Basically I made salmon jerky. While tasty, it was unsclieable and inedible for a bagel or appetizer.

I also cut the tail sections off and into pieces as they tend to dry out in a 24 hour brine. Depending on how they turn out from smoking, I might slice them as lox or chop them and add them into cream cheese and make a salmon spread.

As for pellicle, my biggest issue is personal time. I use the fridge as a holding station as I donā€™t always have time to smoke the same day as the oellicle develops. Like last night, I ran out of time to smoke the salmon.

Iā€™ll have time tonight as dinner is leftovers so instead of cooking, I can prep the smoke tube and set the salmon into the grill to smoke it.

Iā€™ll either use my Summit gasser which Iā€™ve done in years past or use the S6 and crack it open so the heat dissipates and doesnā€™t hot cook the salmon, like my Motherā€™s Day snafu.

And yes, the pellicle does develop in 2-3 hours in the fridge, and yes, you can use a fan too. The salmon oils come to the surface fairly easily so pellicle development is not difficult nor time consuming.

My recipe, for one whole side of salmon is:
2/3 cup pickling salt - must be pickling salt when using this salt amount. Donā€™t subs another type of salt.
1 cup of sugar divided into half of non-bleached sugar and dark brown sugar. Do not use raw sugar. Just unbleached. While you can use bleached (white sugar), we donā€™t consume that product in our home.
1 tbs each of ground white and black pepper
1 tbs dried fresh dill - we make our own which is air dried, not factory dried as factories use dehydrators which changes the taste and flavor of all dried herbs.

Combine all ingredients and thoroughly mix.

Sprinkle half the dry brine mix atop the salmon and gently press into the flesh.

Flip the salmon over and do the same application to the fish, gently pressing the brine into the flesh.

Cover and refrigerate for 12 hours.

After 12 hours, open the container and incorporate the sugar that is on the bottom of the vessel so itā€™s fully mixed into the now liquid brine. This will ensure a better flavor and more penetration into the flesh as the brine is at maximum flavor.

After 24 hours, remove fish and gently rinse under cold water to remove the brine and excess solids. Place onto a rack on a tray and fridge so you can develop the pellicle.

Discard the liquid brine. Itā€™s not useable.
 
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You got it all under control, just tossing ideas that I use that may help. Time constraints....things pop up ect.
I don't make lox, you may notice my brined salmon always gets a heat cook with smoke to about 130 degrees.....
Rare, juicy salmon for a dinner.......big hit no matter who is over for dinner.
Can't wait to see how it goes.
 
Finally got time to cold smoke the salmon. Itā€™s a balmy 56Ā° right now which is perfect.

Maple šŸ pellets in the smoke tube. Will blow the flame out and then lay the tube down to smoke the chamber which has the salmon in it.

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Got to use my Summit gasser šŸ˜‚šŸ˜‚šŸ˜‚

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And the smoke rolls inside the Summit

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Smoke session is complete. Now wrap the salmon so the smoke flavor mellows and penetrates deeper in the flesh. Itā€™ll be easy for slicing Sunday AM.

The tail sections tend to dry out more than the loin so I might make jerky with those or mince them and whip up a salmon spread (with cream cheese).

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Hopefully someone here is inspired to give this a go. The process takes some time but the reward is very high. We havenā€™t bought cold smoked salmon lox in years now.
 
And we slice. The nose on this is incredible. Maple smoke. The oils rally come to the surface after smoking and chilling. Sliced pics to follow.

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@Brett-EDH , how much time cold smoking? How much time wrapped and refrigerated before serving?

Thanks.
The smoke session ran 2 hours. Maple Pellets in the smoke tube spaced around 24ā€ away from the salmon so no heat hit the salmon.

The wrap/rest was a full afternoon and overnight in the fridge which is plenty to ā€œpushā€ the smoke into the fish. Basically the wrap and fridge mellows the smoke intensity. One night is plenty. Iā€™ve done two nights and it doesnā€™t make a difference.

Hope this helps. Lmk if you have any additional questions.
 
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Nice knife skills........now lets see how fast you can do it, and maybe you can earn your spot on the food network :LOL:
Looking good once again. Makes me hungry, I haven't eaten in 14 hours......
 
Nice knife skills........now lets see how fast you can do it, and maybe you can earn your spot on the food network :LOL:
Looking good once again. Makes me hungry, I haven't eaten in 14 hours......
Fast and well. Iā€™ve sliced up many of these and have it down to a science. Work from the tail upwards and cut the top half and bottom half at different slicing approaches as the grain is different on each piece. You can see that my slices are ā€œsee the knife throughā€ which is key to a proper thinness.

FoodNetwork would be fun. Donā€™t know if my repertoire is deep enough though. My quality is high, from what Iā€™ve been told.

Iā€™m just a better than average home cook. But Iā€™ve also sold wholesale product in years past. Just didnā€™t take that into a full on commercial business.
 
You also almost always have a 30 minute time limit on the food network.....
It's one of the few channels I watch.
I thought about what they have to go through numerous times....and if they had a home cook version of one of those shows....
The thought of being strapped down to the second would be enough for me to fail.
I cook well, but never on a time limit......dinners have been 2 hours late more than once with company over.......:LOL:
Being able to do 3 things at once and keep time limits on each thing seems to be the key to success.
 
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Can you skip the smoke? If so, what stage is the recipe complete?

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