Homemade Sausage Making

Got a hold of three 6-7 lb coho yesterday and decided to smoke them. Brined in a 40% salt solution with brown sugar, garlic, cracked black pepper as well as fresh thyme, oregano and rosemary from the garden. The salmon was brined for 13 hours and is just about ready for the smoker. Tasted a raw piece and it tastes great as is. If I will be able to keep the temp in the smoker under 25C, I will smoke cold smoke half and hot smoke the other half. I did add cure 1 to the brine for that reason.

Looking good sofar. I am licking my chops already.
Regards,
Jan.

Today is the first time in about two weeks that the temperature has fallen below 25°C day or night.

Outside temp today is 22 and rising. So far, for the past 3 hours I have been managing the temp., but barely. I have a cold smoke attachment for my Bradley and have been placing bowls of ice into the cabinet. I think I will take the cold smoke portion out, finish hot smoking and put the rest back in tonite when the temp comes down a bit.

redzed, what's the temperature in your smoker using that external smoke generator? Can it do a true cold smoke?

--
Cheers,
Rob

Hey Red, that's gorgeous! I was wondering about the humidity and rate of moisture loss. Wow, that salmon looks like gold to a desert dweller! Nice photography too. Be sure to include a few "after" pictures also. Thanks for posting.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

The hot smoked turned out quite good but unfortunately I could not eliminate the white "boogers". Taste wise it's very good, firm on the outside but still moist and flavourful on the inside. Will be a great lunch on my hiking excursions. The cold smke is also quite flavourful, very nice colour when sliced and enough smoke flavour after 6 hours. I managed to keep the temp under 26 so I did not cook it. The cold smoke attachment certainly does work, but not in this warm weather. The last time I cold smoked salmon was in March. Outside temp was around 8 and I was able to maintain a steady temp in the cabinet between 18 and 20C for 12 hours. I did not weigh the raw salmon so I am not sure about the rate of moisture loss, but of course it was considerable in the hot smoked batch, and less in the cold smoked.

Yesterday I also picked up 10 whole fresh sockeye, minutes after they came of a boat. Stayed up untill well past midnight filleting them. Not only did I have to process mine but fillet another seven for friends. We will be canning most of them and I like to make gravlax from them. Sockeye fillets are a lot firmer than coho, making thin slices possible and the deep red colour is great in presentation.

Nice job! I really like salmon.

Served some of the cold smoked to friends yesterday. Certainly passed the test. Two trays like the one below vanished in a matter of minutes. A nice chardonnay was an excellent companion to the salty sweet aromatic salmon.

Very nice . At more than 20 dollars per pound here it is certainly worth doing if the fresh fish is affordable.

Yes, I certainly consider myself very fortunate to be living in this part of the world and having access to fresh salmon. I caught a few sockeye myself this summer but the coho in the pics was purchased from a First Nations fisherman. I paid 15 a fish. They were smaller coho weighing 6-7 lbs.

Salmon filits here sell 7 to 10 dollars/pound fresh.

redzed wrote:Sockeye fillets are a lot firmer than coho, making thin slices possible and the deep red colour is great in presentation.

I am glad to hear this! The local Costco was selling whole fresh sockeye for 4.99/lb (!!), so I got some that had just been packaged. Seemed reasonably fresh when I opened it. I'm no salmon expert so I wasn't sure how it compared to other types, but what you say makes me happy as I started some lox with it. We'll see how it comes out! Nice pictures, by the way.

Actually for smoking I prefer Coho or Chinook (King salmon in American). However, for eating fresh, sockeye is great. It is also the leanest of the bunch. I have had success making a Scandinavian style gravlax with sockeye. Because it has minimal amount of fat you have to be careful not to overdo it if you are hot smoking. But you should do well cold smoking it. Let us know of your methodology and results.

Redzed - I will let you know how it comes out, positive or negative. I am not going to smoke it at all, just cure it. I don't have a good way of cold smoking at this point, though I did finally break down and ordered an Amaz-n smoker today!