Cold smoked salmon


 
Geir Widar

Geir Widar

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I finally did it! A have had a dream of doing this for several years, and today I made it. I cold smoked my own salmon.

There is a lot of work and research behind this post, as well as some tinkering.

I did not want to try to smoke lots of salmon on my first try. These are the two small pieces, about two pounds of fresh fish.
One piece is just brined for 48 hours in salt and a bit of sugar, the other one the same, but with Anethum graveolens and Ireland's finest.
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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43007/106769.jpg

I found out how to make a smoke generator on the forum, I think someone from Finland gave med the idea, so i copied it without much modificatons. This is a manual oil suction pump, with another nipple added, the mesh from a tea thingy, some wire from a cleaner's clotheshanger, and some heat resistant silicone. A couple of pieces of wood, and some rivets, and here it is. By the way- thank you, the guy from Finland! (Can't find the post)
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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43007/106770.jpg

I fired it up with a split briquette, using my weed burner, and filled it with wood grains made with a chainsaw. Smoke!

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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43007/106771.jpg

The fish inside the WSM

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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43007/106772.jpg

I started out by feeding the smoke into the bottom of the WSM, but it was so cold that it was just floating around near the bottom, and not near the top grate, so i moved the feed to the top vent. Notice the duct tape on the door and the open holes on the vent. You can see the whole setup in this picture. It does not take a lot of space, and is easily stowed away.
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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43007/106773.jpg

The final result. As you can see, I have taken a couple of samples and tasted the final result.

I must admit, this is the best smoked salmon I have ever tasted, and we do have a lot of high quality salmon available here in Norway.
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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43007/106774.jpg

Levert av: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/

I have learned a lot. First of all, "dry" home made wood chips are not dry at all. I dried round number two in my microwave the generator has to be refilled every two hours, and the smoke generator worked much better on the second run. Further along, it needs a couple of taps every 20 minutes to generate enough smoke. Maybe I need a stronger aquarium pump. The generator gets very hot in the bottom. I will need a piece of copper to connect the rubber tubing, the tubing is guaranteed to resist 600 degrees fahrenheit, but that was not enough.
 
Sorry,I should have included the smoke time. I smoked the salmon for six hours. As i had some problems with my setup and the intensity of the smoke, I'm a bit unsure if the time is ideal. It took some time before I understood that the smoke generator needed a couple of taps every twenty minutes to operate properly. On the other hand, the WSM was fairly filled with smoke the whole time. It did not leak much, just some small leaks around the upper lid.
As I see it, if the WSMis filled with smoke, it is "good enough", and adding even more smoke would not help at all. If it is full, it is full. The smoke behaves in a complete different way compared to hot smokes. It was quite strange to see the thick smoke layer filling up from the bottom of the WSM when I injected the smoke from one of the bottom vents, compared to the "normal" operation. A dense layer of smoke in the WSM from the position of the pan (I removed the pan as it was not needed) and "clear air" in the rest of the smoker. The smoke behaved like the smoke from "dry ice". Interesting..
 
Pretty cool Geir. Man it would be nice if you could post details on how you made the generator setup.
 
Yes, you found the thread where I "stole" the idea. I'ts just the sucktion pump, a piece of steel mesh five centimetres from the bottom, and a extra nipple. That's all. I made a ring fram an old metal chlothes rack to hold the mesh in place, but I'm not at all sure that it is necessary. I had problems keeping the smoke going, so i added a half briquette of coal, but this might relate to the wood chips beeing much more moist than I expected. maybe sawdust is even better, I'll try that on the next run.

The "traditional" piece was the best, the one without herbs, whisky and olive oil.

The next time, if I'm going to make just a small portion, I think I will place the dome of the WSM on a flat surface, on some cardboard or something. There is no need to fill the WSM with smoke, and the smoke is so cold that there are no problems with heat.
 
Now, a second run. The first run was a great success, the taste of the fish was second to none, much better than the store- bought smoked salmon. Now- a small problem. Today the temps outside was 14 degrees fahrenheit. It's not possible to cold smoke. I had to find a solution, and it could be solved by using a few briquettes in my WSM, but then I found this- twenty dollars, 200 watts, and a thermostate.
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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43843/108779.jpg

Much easier to use. It won't last forever in the smoky conditions, but hey- I'll just buy another one. It's a frost guard, designed to keep temps over freezing points in small rooms, for example pump cabinets and so on. I installed it in my WSM, set to 60 degrees, and off we go.
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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43843/108781.jpg
 
I used "dill" on my last run, and din not like it much. I know it's great with fish, but this is a question of personal preferences. This time the pepper- marinated piece was better than the one with juniper.

After all, it's fun to make food that's a bit more complicated than "open the bag, and add water".

Looks nice, eh?

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Fullversjon: http://sportsfiske.nu/foto/arkiv/43860/108824.jpg
 
I let the smoke generator run for two full runs, so, between five to six hours. I used ash- chips, made with a chainsaw. I cut down an ash in my garden a few years ago, and saved some of the trunk in case I wanted to build a couple of more guitars.
 
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