Smoked Sockeye on Sunday

[Bruce McLeod]

It's Sockeye Salmon season here, so my neighbour and I managed to score some freshly caught beauties at our local supermarket. The metric price of $.87/100g (they do that to make the price look smaller

) works out to $3.95 CDN or $3.67 USD per lb.
A great price considering that there's been a shortage of sockeye in recent years.

Shooting to smoke it on Sunday using Cardog's rub and locally-sourced Alder wood for smoke. We like it moist, so will probably pull it ~140? and watch it disappear.

Sunday night our town has BC Day Fireworks on the beach directly in front of our house, so every deck in the neighbourhood will be jammed with residents and their spectator guests. A lotta fun in all, but nowhere near as impressive as most July 4th shows in US towns.
Ahhh...good food from the WSM and great wine etc. will help set the mood for the evening.
Here's a July 1st burst seen from our deck.

 

[Bruce McLeod]

The cook went fairly smoothly. Did the rub and left it on for ~2hrs. Only thing I screwed up on was using coarse salt - most of it was not dissolved when it came time to rinse. I'll just use finer non-iodized salt next time.

Pellicle formed & ready to smoke:

Between my neighbour and I we did three sides of sockeye and trimmed the thinner belly portions from the thicker sides.

Belly portions went on the lower grate, just above the water pan that was 3/4 full of cold water. The thicker sides just about filled the top grate.
Got the WSM going, added about three fist-sized chunks of alder (split into smaller pieces), let the temp get up to ~260?, then reduced bottom vents to ~25% and temp eased down to ~206?.
Put on the salmon and ~ 1hr later, when the thickest portions measured 140?, I pulled the works, covered them for 10 minutes and served.

All the avid, experienced salmonivores at the table loved it........with some going so far as to say it was the best salmon they had ever had.

Big thank you to Chris for this forum, and to Jim and Dave for the Cardog's technique/recipe.

Next up is some bacon (local asian supermarket has pork belly on special this week), home-made bratwurst (using this stuffer):

and more PP.

 

[G Dechaine]

Bruce, I like the stuffer. I'm going to order one soon. Making sausage is a lot easier with one of those, I bet.

Nice salmon too.

 

[Larry Wolfe]

Very nice FEEEESH!!

 

[Toby Keil]

Salmon looks KILLER, I love smoking salmon. I'll smoke a bunch then vac seal and freeze what I don't use to take to friends houses, party's etc, always a big hit. Great job and nice pics.

 

[Bruce McLeod]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I like the stuffer. I'm going to order one soon. Making sausage is a lot easier with one of those, I bet. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the positive comments

I bought the stuffer in Bellingham, WA from Grizzly Tools, which is a dangerous place to visit for a guy who likes tools.

http://grizzly.com/products/5-...age-Stuffer-SS/H6252.

Now it's time to have some of that salmon with cream cheese and capers on melba toast.

 

[G Dechaine]

Hey, about that stuffer...do you have to screw it down, or what? I don't have a space where I can leave it permanently. Does it work well if you just place it on a table top or something.

 

[Bryan S]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by G Dechaine:
Hey, about that stuffer...do you have to screw it down, or what? I don't have a space where I can leave it permanently. Does it work well if you just place it on a table top or something. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
G, what you can do if you have like a Black and Decker Work mate table or a vice is make a wood base that fits a stuffer, meat grinder etc, and then that will fit into either the B&D WM table or a vise for a temp solution. If none of them are avail, then there's the quick grips that you can use to secure to say a picknic table or the like.

HTH
Bruce, I don't like salmon, and don't eat it, but it sure does look great, nice job.

 

[Bruce McLeod]

Hey G,
I'm making a 1"X6" red cedar base for it that will be about 6" wider than the stuffer base on each side. I'll permanently mount the stuffer to the wood base. That way I can clamp it down to the kitchen counter using a couple of Quick Grip clamps.

Bryan, I like your suggestion of using a WorkMate - I may try that too.

The pork belly I bought is remarkably lean so my whole family is looking forward to the kind of bacon it'll produce.

We don't like the sweet maple flavour of commercially produced bacon, but we do like some locally made double-alder-smoked bacon, that's sold at a local deli.

So, for smoke, I'm thinking primarily alder with a little hickory thrown in.

As for the brine, I'll be taking a more savory approach.

Any suggestions?

 

[Shawn W]

looks great Bruce GJ, I love sockeye, beautiful color, great texture

 

[Bryan S]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Bruce McLeod:
Bryan, I like your suggestion of using a WorkMate - I may try that too. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Bruce, it works very well. My Dad took a 2"X6" and a 4"X4" and joined them together for my #32 meat grinder. Then I just bolt the grinder onto the 2X6 and the 4X4 gets clamped into the work mate. It's quick and easy, and you can make up several diff bases for all your stuff.

HTH