Yes, we hot smoked the fish. First we brined it, then smoked it on my mates back porch, with a combination of different types of wood chips and it was delicious, very smokey and sweet. Much better than the stuff you can buy commercially.

Sound tasty


What benefit does the brining process give to the salmon ( not trying to be too nosy - just curious as I'm thinking about getting another smoker made and trying a few different techniques this time )

We brine it with a mixed of salt and brown sugar which imparts a sweet flavour plus it helps it to keep moist while smoking.


Here are some pictures of my breakfast this morning. They were very tasty, I can highly recommend them, although I think I drove the neighbours cat a bit barmy.

Maybe this will help (it is a send-up of a Eurovison contest song and a better version at that):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBBXeccmBEw

Oink, how much salt and sugar do you put in your brine? For all the white fleshed fish I catch in Sask (pike, walleye. burbot, whitefish, suckers) that I smoke, I use a cup of sugar and a cup of coarse salt in a gallon of water. When I tried to smoke salmon I found they really retained the salt and I had to cut back to about 1/3 of a cup. When they have those pink salmon on cheap at Superstore I always feel like buying some to smoke. I'm not above throwing things like crushed chilies and honey in the brine as well if they're on hand.

PUKE!

Do you make cuts in the skin prior to brining ?

Stick to the Hamburger Helper..

Yes, a few if the skin is fairly thick.

To answer Caretaker's question; pickling salt, brown sugar, light soya sauce, dry white, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and ginger. I'm no expert and I'm sure there are many different ways and recipes, I just like the way mine come out. Which is, not too sweet and fairly dry.

Actually, to answer caretaker's question you'd have to say how much salt and sugar you use in your brine, but that's ok. :-) I have a fair idea of what works - I just cut the salt back to 1/3 of what I use for white fish.

Sorry, I use 1/3 cup of salt and 1/2 a cup of sugar.