Cold smoked salmon to become lox, part deux


 
Brett-EDH

Brett-EDH

TVWBB Olympian
Well, the last salmon lox didn’t last very long and everyone enjoyed it. Soooo, started part deux this morning at 9A.

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Almost 12 hours later, I incorporated the brine that hadn’t dissolved, by gently rubbing my hands in the container to ensure whatever was sticking is now unstuck. And then flipped all the salmon pieces to ensure an even cure/brine.

As you can see, the slab gives up a lot of its moisture when brined.

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At 9A tomorrow I’ll rinse the salmon and rack it exposed in the fridge for the pellicle to set. If I have time tomorrow evening, I’ll run a cold smoke session of 90-120 minutes of maple smoke.
 
Smoking was done around 425p today. All wrapped and into the fridge for the smoke to settle in and mellow a bit.

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Closeup of the smoked salmon

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And about to be wrapped

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I’ll slice this up in the morning to enjoy it.
 
Looks great! My son is a Salmon fiend, and he gets the Kirkland smoked salmon from Costco. Going to have to do this. Indirect low? One burner, two?
 
Jason Godard said:
Looks great! My son is a Salmon fiend, and he gets the Kirkland smoked salmon from Costco. Going to have to do this. Indirect low? One burner, two?
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neither. cold smoke tube with maple pellets. temp never gets above 70-75 in the chamber; i use my summit 670 as the chamber to keep the smoke it but it lets the heat out due to it being well ventilated.


any maple pellet will do: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00201CF0K/?tag=tvwb-20

any temp above 75F is considered Hot Smoke, not Cold Smoke. Hot Smoke will cook the salmon. Cold Smoke only imparts the smoke onto the fish (via the pellicle) and the fish absorbs the smoke flavor as it rests wrapped in the fridge overnight after cold smoking.

here is a more detailed version i did a few weeks ago: https://tvwbb.com/threads/cold-smoked-salmon-🍣-lox-in-about-2-days.93203/
 
Darren Lebner said:
How full of pellets is the tube? Did the pellets in the tube remain ignited until the end?
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I like to go 2/3 full. Get them lit on fire like in the pic. Then once you have a decent flame, blow out the flame so you have smoke only. No flame should be present in the tube when you’re smoking. Just a smoldering and smoking tube.

Blowing the flame out isn’t always easy. I had to use foil this time to extinguish the flame, basically suffocating the fire. Doing so got me that stream of smoke I needed and shown in the pic with the smoke tube and salmon inside the Summit.

Smoke session ran 2 hours on this salmon lox.
 
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That looks really good Brett.
I have never added any heat to my lox.
Mine is just brined for a few days but it is tasty .
I am going to run my next batch using my smoke tube to check it out.
I always make a batch of NY boiled styled bagels when I do lox.
Having that smoke tube lit up just screams for some cream cheese too :).
 
Andy Kaminski said:
That looks really good Brett.
I have never added any heat to my lox.
Mine is just brined for a few days but it is tasty .
I am going to run my next batch using my smoke tube to check it out.
I always make a batch of NY boiled styled bagels when I do lox.
Having that smoke tube lit up just screams for some cream cheese too :).
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I’m a big fan of maple smoke in this recipe. It just tastes great. You’re on a roll with your menu.

Here was my bagel from the last lox batch. It hit the spot. Many memories of family and good times. Time marches on.

Note, you’re only adding smoke. NO HEAT. Keep your smoke tube far away from the cured salmon. Otherwise you’ll make baked salmon, not lox.

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That bagel is just jaw dropping beautiful.
Yeah, when I want lox I don’t want baked.
Infact when I want smoked salmon I don’t want baked :).
 
I read this and then went and did it again. My son's fiancé's mom came down from Jersey and brought us a bunch of fantastic bagels. Last time I did this I did not do the smoking part. This time I did and used pellets and some apple shavings. Even though I only smoked it for less than an hour it was too smoky. My wife and I prefer the last run that did not have the smoke.
 
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