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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
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
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’ve tried a number of different smoked salmon recipes, some fussy and some easy and I’ve had pretty good luck. But none of those recipes were anywhere near as good as this one. So simple but so GOOD! All the pitfalls that other recipes leave out are covered carefully here. This is the ONLY smoked salmon recipe I’ll ever need. Thank you!
Nice flavor. Used apple wood. Did process like you said ,,perfect results. Tried alder wood in the past but had a less smoked flavor. Thanks
Wow – thank you so much! Amazing flavours – followed recipe to the T and it is sublime!
i’ve been using this recipe for a couple years now, legit. I like to spray a light coat of olive oil and add a little seasoning right when they go into the smoker. thanks Hank!
Used this recipe on some King Salmon and I used an electric smoker at 200 for about 3 hours basting every hour until internal temp of fish was 140 and I used a mix of our fresh fall Honey and our birch syrup. I used apple smoke man oh man this recipe is amazing.
I too have used this technique for a couple of yrs. now..
Christmas eve and Easter are my big salmon cooks and everyone looks forward to it every time…because it’s perfect. I’ve cooked on a BGE and primarily my Hasty nowadays.
The BEST!! Thank you Hank!
I’m wondering if I can smoke this on a grill and use the smoker box for the wood chips. I don’t have a smoker and would love to have one but too expensive right now.
Deb: You can, but keep the heat low. It can be hard to keep the grill smoking below 300F, which is what you need. 200F is better. Have only one part of the grill lit, and put the salmon over the cooler part. You will also want to paint the fish with the basting syrup more often, to “paint away” the albumin that forms.
I also tried this recipe in the kettle several times now. The key for me is to use the charcoal snake method (but only two rows of briquettes rather than three as is typically recommended), which has worked like a charm!
first time smoking salmon, followed your recipe to a T, wow, best salmon i’ve ever had!
was able to control temp in electric smoker 3.5 hrs with full time peach smoke. Thank-you!
I’ve used this recipe soany times, I and I realized I had never left a review! It works great. I’ve tried others, but I always come back to this one. I use it as a base for all my experiments when it comes to salmon. I love it exactly as it is written, but sometimes add some dried dill to the brine and baste to offer a variety of flavor. Seriously, that k you! You’ve give me, family and friends a lot of good eats over the past couple years.
Made this recipe this morning. First time smoking any type of fish. First time using Old Smokey Electric Smoker I found at a thrift store. Turned out delicious, but I’m still uncertain about why I got so much albumin. The highest my smoker got was 185. Next time I will make sure I watch it the whole time, rather than checking on it every 15-20 minutes. Not a big deal for the first time, we will eat it all today, and it’s still nice and moist. Used Pecan chips as that’s all I had. Nice, mild smoke flavor.
This is my go to smoked salmon recipe. Super easy to smoke and the taste is perfect. Have tried a dozen or more other recipes and still come back to this one. Eat it as a dip with Boursine cheese or solo with veggies. Peace out fellow salmon smoker’s
Really appreciate the awesome recipe and the step by step process and explanation. This is my favorite smoked salmon recipe. I would like to try an Asian glaze I make with soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic and ginger.
I’m not sure if it would come out too salty because of the brine. I’m a seasoned smoker but not with salmon so this was a big help! Especially the lower temperature recommendations! Cheers!
I’ve used this recipe twice, to insanely reading reviews.
One question: what’s the minimum “cool” temperature for drying it? I’ve been putting it in my garage, which is between my kitchen and smoker and has a little through-breeze, but now that it’s winter it gets well below zero in there on cold days. Today, however, maybe it’s warm enough?
Followed this recipe exactly my first time smoking salmon and it was the best I’ve ever had. That salmon had skin on it. Followed it again with some salmon that had the skin removed and it came out more dry and salty. Not faulting your recipe because it worked like magic and it’s the best I’ve ever had, but now I know the skin helps keep it moist, absorbs a lot of smoke, and keeps it at a steady temperature. There is a major difference between skin on and skin off in my experience.
Everyone has their own methods for everything BUT I’ve smoked salmon for 40+ years, catching in excess of 2,000 lbs./year from my own boat, and have ALWAYS left the skin on!! To me this is a must!!!
Have been using this recipe for years. I usually only smoke fish when I have lots of time. I have lengthened the time and lowered the temps a bit in the beginning to lesson the albium forming. I also have smoke on the whole time but with the lower temps doesn’t smoke much in the beginning times.
Just looking for recipes to smoke salmon. Looks like this is the original author of this recipe. But came across a chef (Michael Demagistris) who it looks like has cut and pasted your recipe word for word, and claimed it as his own. You might want to check it out on the Bradley Smoker website recipes page listed under fish/Tasmanian salmon.
Perfect!
Killer recipe, took some over to an event at my buddies place along with some smoked salmon dip. Didn’t last long.
Pellicle achieved! What a difference. These instructions are fantastic for smoking wild salmon in the Sonoran Desert. Thank you.
Did this in my Kamado. Ran it with apple wood and basted with real maple syrup. It came out so much better than store bought that I now have requests of smoked fish for Christmas presents from family and friends.
Just made this today. I am new to pellet smoking (RecTeq 590) and have always wanted to smoke salmon. Brined for 7 hrs, put in fridge overnight and cooked per the instructions. Most excellent! RecTeq only has ‘extreme smoke’ setting (low) that sits at 180. I was worried about the temp, but very little albumin. Used real maple syrup. AT 4 hours, internal temp got to 138. Not too salty, not too sweet. Thanks for the recipe! It’s a keeper!