Make Your Own Smoked Salmon
There are many recipes and ways to smoke fish. The most common methods all include a few basic steps. Every recipe will produce a different tasting end result.
Smoked Salmon Brine This first step is making your brine. This is the process of salting the fish to remove moisture, firm the flesh, and impart a salty flavor to the fish. The brine may include additional flavors and colorings. Brines can either be liquid or dry, and all of them include salt in some form. In some recipes this is granular salt, in other recipes it might be soy sauce or something similar. Brine recipes may also include sugar in some form... white sugar, brown sugar, honey, fruit juice, etc. Still other recipes call for addtional flavorings, like garlic, pepper, rosemary, dill, etc.
Air-Drying After the fish comes out of the brine, it must be air-dried. This removes even more moisture from the fish, and this is the step in which the "pellicle" forms. The pellicle is the slightly tacky glaze that forms on the surface of the flesh. It absorbs some of the smoke and it is where a lot of the flavor comes from on your smoked salmon. Air-drying is done at a relatively low temperature- room temperature, or outdoor temperature, depending upon where you're doing the drying.
Smoking This next step involves smoldering wood to create smoke, and the imparting of the smokey flavor into the fish. The smoking is done in a smoker or a larger smokehouse. Many smaller commercial-made smokers are available, they range from small electric-powered all-in-one units to bigger charcoal and wood-fired units with separate fireboxes. Many people use pecan, blackjack oak, apple wood, hickory, or mesquite. Each of these woods gives a different flavor to your smoked salmon. You will want to get your coals going good then add soaked wood chips to produce the smoke. Add the chips as needed.
Heat-Drying This is the last step, and even more moisture is removed from the fish. Make sure you get the fish up to at least 145°F. This will kill off any bacteria in the fish. The heat-drying process is normally done in the smoker. Some people smoke their fish to get the smokey flavor, then move the fish to an oven to do the heat-drying.
Preparing the fish It's important to start with a good fresh fish, or fresh frozen fish. All the brine and sugar in the world won't help a dark fish that has a soft, mushy flesh.
Preparing the dry brine This smoked salmon brine is one of the simplest you will find. If you want to add any additional ingredients, white wine, tabasco sauce, paprika, apple or pineapple juice... do it. Try different variations to get the unique flavor that you like. Remember to write down the exact items you use, that way you can use them again next time, if you liked the way it turned out.
For the salt, use non-iodized canning salt, rock salt has impurities in it that may not give you the best flavor. Canning salt is ground very fine, so use 1 cup of salt for every 4 cups of sugar. For the garlic, try to use fresh garlic, and run it through a garlic press. When using dry garlic flakes use about 1 teaspoon for every clove, or about 10 teaspoons total. You could also try using the chopped garlic sold in a jar, or dry garlic powder, they have a different, more bitter taste, and aren't as potent. Keep extra ingredients on hand. If you run out of your brine mix before you coat all of your fish, simply mix some more. Cover the fillets liberally with the dry brine mixture. Once the fillets are coated, stack them in the bottom of a glass baking dish. If you don't have a glass baking dish you can use gallon zip-loc bags. Once the brine starts to work and water from the fish is extracted, the whole thing turns into a gooey mess, remember this to make clean up easier. Once all the fish is in the brine, cover the container and put it in the fridge for about six hours. The amount of time you keep the fish in the brine and the amount of salt you use in your brine mixture will determine how firm the flesh of the fish becomes, and how salty the taste of the end product will be. After the fish has sat in the brine in the fridge for six hours, take the pieces out one by one and rinse them gently in cold water. You don't want to scrub them or disturb the flesh, you just want to get the heavy deposits of brine off. Once the fish is rinsed off, set it out on a rack to dry at room temperature. Use the rack from your smoker, it's eaiser, but you can use oven racks as well. You need to let the fish dry for four to six hours, depending upon the thickness of the fillets. You don't want the room temperature to be too hot or too cold, what you're trying to do here is dry the fish out and form the pellicle on the surface of the flesh. Good airflow around the fish is helpful, you can even use a small fan to help speed up the process if you'd like. If you're using the racks from your smoker, set it up so the thicker fillets are on the lower shelves, and the thinner fillets are on the upper shelves. This will help them dry more uniformly. The next step is to smoke the fish. -USE COMMON SENSE. Don't set up your smoker indoors. Don't set it up on your deck. Set it up on a firm, level, non-flammable surface, out of the wind, and clear of any houses, garages, wood piles or other flammable objects. Preheat your smoker for 15 minutes to get it up to temperature. Put your rack of fish into it, and add your wood chips to get it smoking. The amount of wood chips and what type you use are completely up to your tastes. Smoke them for about 2 hours, then let the fish sit in there and dry out for another four hours or so, for a complete smoking/drying time of about six hours. Again, this is done to taste, and due to wind and temperature fluctuations, I check on the appearance of the fish after about five hours, and make a judgement from there. Now that you've got a bunch of nice smoked salmon, vacuum pack it and freeze it. The normal home vacuum packers like the FoodSaver series work great. Package your smoked salmon in smaller pieces, they are good for appetizers for a few people. Make sure you mark your packages well so you know which batch of fish is in each and how old it is. That is the basics of how to smoke salmon. Smoked salmon tastes great as is, in a salad or in a dip. We have some excellent smoked salmon recipes for you to try on our fish recipe page.
Return From Smoked Salmon To Fish Recipes
|