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I smoke a lot of salmon, and I am proud of this recipe, although it would be the height of arrogance to say that what I do is the end-all, be-all of salmon smoking recipes. Lots of people smoke their salmon in lots of ways, and many of them are good. But I’ve been smoking fish for many years, and I’ve developed a system that works well.
Keep in mind this is a hot-smoking recipe. Cold smoking, which is the kind of slice-able smoked fish you get in fancy boxes from Scotland is an entirely different thing.
Almost everyone in Salmon Country hot smokes their fish. If you’re unfamiliar with hot-smoked fish, think about those golden smoked whitefish you see in delicatessens; those are hot smoked.
How do you eat it? Well, you can just eat it plain, or you can flake it and make it into a smoked salmon salad, you can pound it with butter and make salmon rillettes, serve it in deviled eggs, tossed with pasta… you get the point.
Here’s what you need to get started:
- A smoker. I’ve uses a Traeger and a Bradley. Both are good. No matter what smoker you use, you will need to be able to a) know your smoking chamber’s temperature, and b) control the heat, at least in a rough sense.
- Wood. The only downside to a Traeger smoker is that you need to use their wood pellets. As a guy who used a Brinkmann wood-fired BBQ for years, fueling it with scraps of almond and other fruit woods, buying wood can be annoying, but you get better precision with this method. I prefer to use alder wood for my salmon, but apple, cherry, oak or maple work fine.
- Salt. Buy a box of kosher salt from the supermarket. Do not use regular table salt, as it contains iodide and anti-caking agents that will give your salmon an “off” flavor. I use Diamond Crystal, which is cut finer than Morton’s.
- Something sweet — salmon love sweet. I prefer to sweeten my smoked salmon with birch syrup; It’s just like maple syrup, only tapped from birch trees instead. Super cool stuff. But maple syrup is just as good. Just use real maple syrup, OK? Not the imitation crap. Honey works, too.
- A large plastic container. Buy the big, flat ones from the supermarket. They stack easily in a normal fridge, so you can have two different brines going. And they clean easily and are pretty cheap.
- A wire rack. You need to rest your brined fish on a rack with plenty of air circulation to form the all-important pellicle (more on that in a bit), and you will use it to rest the smoked fish before storing it.
- A basting brush. You probably already have this in your kitchen, but if not, pick one up. Get the flat kind, like you use to paint detail on window trim.
When you are ready to start, you will need smallish pieces of salmon about 1/4 to 1/2 pound each. Any salmonid fish will work with this recipe. I’ve done it with king salmon, sockeye, coho, and pink salmon, dolly varden, plus kokanee, steelhead and Lahontan trout.
There is no reason it would not work with chum salmon or any other char or trout species. And yes, it works with farmed Atlantic salmon, but I never eat the stuff.
I prefer to smoke salmon with its skin on, but I’ve done it with skinless pieces and it works fine.
Smoked Salmon
Note that my salmon cure is very simple. Feel free to add things if you like. I've added bay leaves, chiles, thyme, garlic and minced onion. All are fine, but subtle. And since I often use smoked salmon as a base for another dish, I want mine to remain simple and clean-tasting.
Ingredients
- 5 pounds salmon, trout or char
- Birch or maple syrup for basting
BRINE
- 1 quart cool water
- 1/3 cup Diamond Crystal kosher salt, about 2 ounces of any kosher salt
- 1 cup brown sugar
Instructions
- Mix together the brine ingredients and place your fish in a non-reactive container (plastic or glass), cover and put in the refrigerator. This curing process eliminates some of the moisture from the inside of the fish while at the same time infusing it with salt, which will help preserve the salmon.
- You will need to cure your salmon at least 4 hours, even for thin fillets from trout or pink salmon. In my experience, large trout or char, as well as pink, sockeye and silver salmon need 8 hours. A really thick piece of king salmon might need as much as 36 hours in the brine. Never go more than 48 hours, however, or your fish will be too salty. Double the brine if it's not enough to cover the fish.
- Take your fish out of the brine, rinse it briefly under cold running water, and pat it dry. Set the fillets on your cooling rack, skin side down. Ideally you'd do this right under a ceiling fan set on high, or outside in a cool, breezy place. By "cool" I mean 60°F or cooler. Let the fish dry for 2 to 4 hours (or up to overnight in the fridge). You want the surface of the fish to develop a shiny skin called a pellicle. This is one step many beginning smokers fail to do, but drying your cured, brined fish in a cool, breezy place is vital to properly smoking it. The pellicle, which is a thin, lacquer-like layer on top of the fish, seals it and offers a sticky surface for the smoke to adhere to. Don't worry, the salt in the brine will protect your fish from spoilage. Once you have your pellicle, you can refrigerate your fish for a few hours and smoke it later if you'd like.
- Start by slicking the skin of your fish with some oil, so it won't stick to the smoker rack. Know that even though this is hot smoking, you still do not want high temperatures. Start with a small fire and work your way up as you go. It is important to bring the temperature up gradually or you will get that white albumin "bleed" on the meat. I can control my heat with my smoker, so I start the process between 140°F and 150°F for up to an hour, then finish at 175°F for a final hour or two. NOTE: What my smoker is set at is not necessarily what the actual temperature is. Smoking is an art, not a science. To keep temperatures mild, always put water in your drip pan to keep the temperature down. If your smoker is very hot, like a Traeger can get, put ice in the tray.
- After an hour in the smoker, baste the fish with birch or maple syrup, or honey; do this every hour. This is a good way to brush away any albumin that might form. In most cases, you will get a little. You just don't want a ton of it. Even if you can't control your temperature this precisely, you get the general idea. You goal should be an internal temperature of about 130°F to 140°F. (Incidentally, yes, I keep the smoke on the whole time. I don't find this to be too much smoke, but if you want a lighter smoke, finish the salmon without smoke or in a 200°F oven.)
- You must be careful about your heat. Other than failing to dry your salmon long enough, the single biggest problem in smoking salmon is too high heat. If you've ever seen salmon "bleed" a white, creamy substance, that's a protein called albumin. If you see lots of it, you've screwed up; a little is normal. Here's what happens: If you cook a piece of salmon at too high a heat, the muscle fibers in the meat contract so violently that they extrude albumin, which immediately congeals on the surface of the fish. It's ugly, and it also means your salmon will be drier than it could have been. You prevent this with a solidly formed pellicle, and by keeping your heat gentle. If you let your heat get away from you and you do get a white mess on your salmon, all is not lost. Just flake it out and make salmon salad with it: The mayonnaise in the salad will mask any dryness.
- Once your fish is smoked, let it rest on the cooling rack for an hour before you put it in the fridge. Once refrigerated and wrapped in plastic, smoked fish will keep for 10 days. If you vacuum-seal it, the fish will keep for up to 3 weeks. Or freeze your fish for up to a year.
Notes
One last piece of advice: Try to fill up your smoker with fish. This process takes a while to do, and your smoker doesn't care if its full or half-empty, so you might as well make a big batch.
And keep in mind this recipe is for basic smoked salmon. Other options are smoked salmon candy, a great snack, and, once you have your smoked salmon, you can use it in smoked salmon dip on crackers.
Nutrition
Serving: 113g | Calories: 132kcal | Protein: 21.3g | Fat: 4.9g | Saturated Fat: 1.1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1.1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2.3g | Cholesterol: 26.7mg | Potassium: 198.7mg | Vitamin A: 100IU | Calcium: 10mg | Iron: 1mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Tried this recipe? Tag me today!Mention @huntgathercook or tag #hankshaw!
How do you possibly start off at 100 degrees?
I have my smoker sitting in the sun and the inside
Temp is 100 without even turning on the flame. I’m guessing
The chips won’t start smoking till at least 150-170 degrees.
Even if I leave the door open, I think it will get hotter
than 100.
I’m buying a Traeger smoker this weekend. Its lowest temp setting is 185. Does anyone have any tips about smoking salmon, or any other fish, at this temp?
Followed your recipe. Now I’m smoking all types of fish for family and friends. Friends buy it and drop it off, and wait till I do a batch. They say it is better then any restuarant or smoker house product they have ever had. Thanks for doing all the research work.
I have used a brine 1/2 rock salt and 1/2 brown sugar. filet Sockeye Salmon with skin on. I put a hand full of dill between the filets and put glass container with a weight on the filets for 4 days turning every 12 hrs.
I drained and it is in the fridge to dry out then I will smoke 1/2 and eat the rest as LOX.
I am smoking beef jerky with the salmon tomorrow using the 3 temp method to slowly dry and finish the salmon and jerky. There is less and less salmon left as the evening goes on.
does anyone know if there will be a problem smoking the beef jerky with the same method as the salmon?
Thanks
I like my Camp Chef Smoke Vault so much I sent one to a good friend.
I like that it takes real wood and is propane fired.
Once the wood starts smoking I just turn it down to low for the duration and it does the rest.
I am trying a table spoon of black pepper in the brine and I will try a bit off Cayenne pepper in the next batch.
Thanks for your recipe…turns out great..I see how important the pellicle is. I just leave it on a rack over night in the kitchen and it forms a good one.
Chad: smoked salmon is also something that you have to “watch” when your learning how. ive found it better to open my smoker at have it take longer because im checking on it, than have it cook really fast.
Patrick: Look at the answer I gave to Nancy a little higher on this comment thread.
Chad: Atlantic salmon get that albumin thing worse than others, I’ve found. An easy way to mitigate is to paint it away with the maple syrup.
Doug: All salt will dissolve in cold water, with enough stirring. But yes, pickling salt is ground finer and dissolves easier.
I have an original Bradley and will be going to NY next week for some king salmon fishing. I am planning on trying this recipe seeing how it looks pretty easy and I have never smoked salmon. Only question is, how long do you run the smoke for?
Trying this for the first time, looks great! The only thing different I’m doing is…. using pickling/canning salt instead of kosher. Kosher is usually my go to salt of choice, but while watching Food Network’s Alton Brown do a smoking episode, he remarked that kosher salt does not desolve in cold water but pickling salt does. This way the salt won’t sit on the bottom. Looking forward to this, thanks!
Starting to think my probe isn’t reading correctly. Temperature never got above 160 during the first 4 hours and I still have albumin issues
Nancy: It’s a matter of art, not science. How smoky do you like it? How dry? Cold smoked or hot (this is a hot smoked recipe, BTW). In general I use king salmon, which runs about 1 to 2 inches thick. I never smoke less than 4 hours, but then my Bradley smoker heats up very slowly so it’s a gentle process. Six hours is my norm.
When I used to smoke fish on a kettle grill, i.e., a Weber, I would use only the coals in the chimney starter and smoked for 4 hours TOPS. Why? The heat was higher.
If I had a side of silver, sockeye, pink or, Atlantic (although I never eat Atlantic salmon these days) I would drop the time by 1 hour because the fillets are thinner.
Bottom line: It takes time to learn *your* smoker and *your* preferences.
We just bought a smoker and our 1st attempt we over cooked the salmon, it was dry but the taste was great. My question is, is there a rule of thumb on how long to smoke salmon?
Ryan: Yep, that’s it.
This is a perfect recipe, mostly because it almost perfectly mirros my one, with just a few variations. Your write-up and the photos are superb, thanks for sharing! I have been smoking for the past few years on a Bradly and love it, prior to that in a home-made smokehouse. I like the control over both the smoke and the temperature of the Bradly. One thing I will add to my procedure is the basting with syrup part, that will be a magnificent touch! I may try basting with spruce tip syrup, which I just made for the first time.
I live in Southcentral Alaska, and my family has caught 24 Kenai River red (sockeye) and silver (coho) salmon the last couple of weeks. I’m freezing half and smoking the other half.
I’m currently working on my second (ever!) batch of smoked salmon. I used your recipe for the first batch and my family LOVED it, so I’m sticking with it! Thanks for the great instructions! After 6 hours of smoking, some of the steaks are firm, like I expect them to be, and others are squishy, as if they’re still raw — are they? or are they done but just have a different texture? I don’t really want to dig into them to test for flakiness (doneness?), so is there some way of knowing they’re done while still keeping them intact?
Thanks!
After starting the brine tonight, I realized I did not have any brown sugar…I doubled the syrup amount and adding a little bay leaf as suggested by another person on this thread….planning to brine overnight and smoke with cherry/apple and finish with slight hickory. Will keep you posted.
FYI…this is my 4th time following this recipe with modest success…either way it has been tasty. I have also usd this recipe on catfish filets and catfish nuggets and LOVE what a sweet little snack they turn into.
Awesome mate,now I know why I was getting that white congealing bleed shit. Now to cure using your recipie and smoking using a masterbuilt electric smoker I imported to NZ From Cabelas.
Thanks heaps
Man,
I screwed up, heheheheh. Albumin is there after 1 hour.
Well, anyway,
I did not really follow your recipe but I used it to “fix” a little problem . I did a nice portion of gravlax over5 days and I did not weigh the sugar and salt; I followed for the first time another recipe and the salmon turned ut a little to salty for me. Then I decided to brine it in syrup(One piece in in mapple syrup and another in juniper syrup) for so to smoke it using pecan. Then I started your recipe but I got the albumin thing, heheheh. One piece still in the smoker but the other one is out and it tastes wonderful but it will unfortunately be too dry, probably, after I vaccum it. Next time I will try cold smoking.
What do you think about that?
Well I followed the recipe and everything went good and after the 6 hours of smoking I was taking the rack out of my smoker and it slipped and all the fish fell into my water bowl at the bottom of the smoker…….. son of a……
alright it’s finally starting to get sticky and not so wet, i’m gonna give the artichokes i’m smoking another hour and then throw the fish on, thanks for your help hank, i’ll let you know how it turns out, i tweaked your brine recipe a little and added some dill and crushed garlic cloves, two of my favorite flavors.