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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.
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This might not be the traditional way of doing it, but I recently tried an experiment, to make a combination of gravlox & smoked lox taste…and it came out delicious. What I did was dry the salmon with paper towels and then I painted the salmon with orange extract and then liquid smoke. I let it sit for a few minutes and then painted on the liquid smoke again…then coated on a combination of salt, brown sugar and a little Allspice. I sandwiched in the dill, as in the usual process, wrapped tightly with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for a day and a half…turning it a couple of times. Then, I removed the wrapping, wiped it down and put it in my dehydrator at the lowest (90 degrees) temperature for just an hour or so. It was outrageous tasting and avoided the difficulties with cold smoking…which is hard for most of us to accomplish. I froze some, and that did not degrade the flavor or texture. I get my curing salts from Butcher & Packer, like you do. In fact, I’ve found that their prices are best for all spices and liquid smoke also. Good company that I recommend highly.
Gonna try this in my Traeger tomorrow, will report how it goes 🙂
Great simple recipe! The advice about leaving the fish to form a pellicle is priceless, and I had never heard it before even though I live in the Pacific Northwest and have lots of salmon throughout the year. It’s almost like cold smoking for a couple of hours and then finishing a little hotter to get that ‘just cooked’ texture. Absolutely fantastic! I tried about 4 or 5 different seasonings on several pieces to test out how they go with the brine and the smoke. I’ll try and remember to pass on the details as I taste my way through them. (I own a smoke hollow smoker and smoke 25lb batches.) I also find that vacuumed packed smoked fish will keep nicely for up to a year -although it gets eaten much faster than that a few pieces tend to ‘hide’ in the freezer for longer. Thanks again!!
We have tried several smoked salmon recipes, but yours has been the best. We actually used it on a large, wild rainbow trout we caught. Now just need a bottle of Alaska Birch Syrup!
I will be trying this recipe in a few days. I will be using king salmon I caught on the Rogue River. The pieces are very thick and will probably have to brine them to 30 + hours.
My question, will I have to smoke them longer to get the smoked flavor. I will be using the Bradley smoker.
Thanks,
John
Robilee: Yep. I do that a lot.
We are trying this for the first time. We are smoking sockeye and will have it in the brine for 24 hr then do the drying. Can we put the salmon in the frig after drying and smoke it the next day?
I tried this recipe last week my fish turn out very good, brine it for 24 hrs and smoked it with cherry wood for 4 hrs. Did about 15 lbs. of salmon. Doing another 15 lbs again this weekend.
This is the best smoked salmon I have ever made and I’ve used it on both fresh caught Chinook and Silvers so far. I prefer it to the dry cured recipes I’ve used in the past. I did find it smoked faster than expected in my digital electric smoker so keep an eye on the last hour or two. The maple syrup makes for a beautiful glaze that isn’t sticky at all. I use alder and like to add some lemon pepper and light garlic powder just before going into the smoker to add some zest. Great recipe that everyone seems to love.
hi I’m new to the site and i was wondering if all the ingredients are part of the brine or is it just salt and water
I use a Cookshack smoker with Alder wood. 2 1/2 to 3 hours at 180 gives me an int.temp of 155. I am curious about your birch syrup.
My brine is 3 cups water, 1 cup red wine, 3/4 cup each of Morton’s Curing salt, white sugar and brown sugar, 1 Tbsp. garlic pdr and several dashs of La hot sauce. Using farmed salmon from Norway. I get rave results but I want to try your recipe. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated. My wife says she’ll leave if I fool with this recipe and she’s a keeper! Help!!
I have been smoking fish for years. Today I was in the mood for something new and tried this recipe. It is amazing and I can’t thank you enough. From now on I will only use this recipe!
Great! I have the bradley digital smoke 4 rack, and I like to use hickory or cherry, try replacing the syrup with brown sugar, once the brine is done and dried, coat it with brown sugar, wait for it to dissolve, then throw it in, use a spray bottle with brown sugar and water, then spray the fish not rub or baste. Is ferry delicate. Spray bottle is your friend.
Hank – I did this recipe last weekend (using maple syrup) on my wood smoker with Oak logs. Occasionally I sprinkled some apple wood chips to sweeten the smoke. I followed your instructions to the letter and I have to say it smoked to perfection! I loved it so much I am filling my smoker this weekend and doing it again! I just wanted to say thanks you for your recipe. Anyone who enjoys smoked salmon needs to give it a try…
Thanks for the recipe and instructions. I’ve never smoked anything in my life, went out and bought a brinkmann charcoal smoker. Followed your recipe and instructions with some fresh caught Pinks, and they turned out great. My friends and family made quick work of them. I will definitely be purchasing your books now!
Drew,
I too have a Big Green Egg. In order to get temps low and produce smoke I remove the charcoal grate in the bottom of the egg and use a charcoal chimney starter instead. You might have to modify your chimney to get it to fit down into the ash bin. Fill the chimney with lump charcoal interspersed with chunks of your favorite smoking wood. With the charcoal confined to the chimney and a few strategically placed chunks of wood you can dial down the temps and as the charcoal burns up the chimney the wood chunks produce smoke for hours. I use this technique for smoking bacon too. Good luck and cheers!
I will be brining tomorrow and smoking Sunday. One thing you didn’t mention is the thickness of the filets? I will be doing about 10lbs of king salmon, my filets are from the back half/tail section about 3/4-1 inch thick, skin on. Is it safe to stick with the 6 hours? I am using a OBS but have a PID to control temps
I just took up salmon fishing this year and its my first year preparing any of it. I decided to buy a big chief smoker as again, I’m new, and wanted to smoke. My husband is US Army and is currently deployed and being a busy body wife, I took up this hobby and He’s very thrilled to hear about my catching and smoking. Fish has turned out awesome. My question is, how can I go about sending him some salmon! I’ve already smoked it and was thinking vacuum sealing? It takes 7 days to reach him and I want to do this right. Thank you for any input.
Kalani
As if I didn’t already wish we’d caught bigger salmon on Lake Michigan two weeks ago. Or more. We got two small king salmon, and the guy who took us on his boat gave us a small piece of smoked salmon from a previous year. Maybe next year we’ll catch some Coho or king big enough to smoke.
Christopher: Never heard of a Traeger smoker. Sorry!
Dave: Well, most people smoke salmon in colder climates. Are you in California, too? In either case, the chips burn regardless because they are lit from either you setting them on fire or a heating element. In winter I smoke salmon at 60 degrees and get plenty of smoke.
But the bottom line is take the smoking process sloooow… Gradual heat is the key.