Brine Time

[The Life of Brine]

How long would you leave a 600gm salmon fillet in this wet brine for?

My last experiment had a good result using a dry brine first for 9 hours
- 2 cups kosher salt
- 2 cups brown sugar

Wet brine for 4 hours
- 2 litres water
- 1 cup kosher salt
- 3/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup golden syrup
- 3/4 cup The Famous Grouse

- gently washed for 25 minutes

- dried for 3 days

- cold smoked for 3.5 hours

[rajzer]

You are asking a very difficult question. To begin with, weigh, not measure your salt.  Based on your recipe, one cup of kosher salt probably weighs 5 to 7 oz. and with two litres of water  you will have a salt content somewhere in the 20 to 30 degrees brine range, relatively weak. It also depends how thick the fillet is, the variety of salmon, and whether it's with the skin.  Then there is the matter of personal taste.  How salty do you like it.  In your recipe the salt will be totally masked by the excessive (my opinion) amount of sugars.  Anyway, fish is not pork loin and does not need to be brined for as long.   IMHO, I would not brine it overnight, slice off a piece and taste.   And I would mop it with a mix of the syrup and grouse rather than dumping it into the brine.  And to be on the safe side, I would add 1tb. of cure 1 into the brine.

[The Life of Brine]

Thanks for your reply.

An egg began to float in the wet brine and that's the only salinity measure I used.
With that time washing, it wasn't too salty.
The skin was left on and the fillet was about 4cm thick X 14cm wide.
I'm wanting to brine the next fillet for a further 2 hours,

Would you advise to brine for more or less time?

[rajzer]

Why not just taste it out of the brine?  You are cold smoking it so you will be eating it raw anyway.

[The Life of Brine]

Did the taste test after brining that last fillet and it was beaut.
Could have eaten it all before smoking.

Have got a fillet drying now which was brined for 6 hours and after the weekend,
will know if that time was successful.

There's a large range of brine recipes and brine times on the Forums.
It looks like experimenting is the best way to find out what works,

[rajzer]

How are you drying the fish?

[The Life of Brine]

On a cake rack, under a mesh cake cover, inside a home with a ventilation system.
Others were given 2-3 days,

[rajzer]

If you are keeping raw fish at room temperature for three days and then cold smoking it without nitrite, you are looking for trouble.  The amount of salt and length of time in the brine is not enough to prevent bacteria.

[The Life of Brine]

Fortunately trouble hasn't found its way to my cured salmon fillets.

Have just taste tested this for curiosity and it's perfect.
If there are any problems with excessive bacteria or spoiling I'll make changes to the drying process.
So far, so good.

A pellicle is forming just as other Posts advise.
By tomorrow it will be all ready for smoking,

[pmmpete]

The salt concentration in brine recipes varies greatly.  You can't estimate how long you should leave fish in a brine unless you can estimate the salt concentration of the brine.  http://www.wedlingdomowe.com/sausage-making/curing/making-brine contains an excellent explanation of how to make brines and measure salinity, with a salt concentration table.  When estimating the salt concentation which will be produced by a brine recipe using a salt concentration table, I consider only the water and salt components of the recipe, although ingredients such as soy sauce will also affect the salt concentration. 

When I try out a new brine recipe, I adjust the quantities of water and salt to create a brine with 60 salometer degrees.  I know from experience how long to leave various kinds of fish in a brine of that concentration.  For example, I leave thin little Kokanee Salmon fillets in for one hour, and medium sized Lake Trout fillets in for two hours.

Rajzer's advice about measuring salt by weight rather than volume is good, because the density (weight per cup) of different kinds of salt varies greatly.  The problem is that different brine recipes call for different kinds of salt, such as table salt, kosher salt, and sea salt.  If a recipe calls for a volume of salt, you need to figure out how to convert that volume to a weight.

[The Life of Brine]

Thanks for your help. There's excellent information in the link,

[pmmpete]

Here are some suggestions about how to convert volumes of salt to weight from a posting I did in response to a posting entitled "The salinity of Kummock's brine:"

Brine recipes which call for a specific volume of salt, such as 1 cup of kosher salt in half a gallon of water, are less accurate and predictable than brine recipes which call for a specific weight of salt, because different kinds and brands of salt have different densities.  If you check the volume-to-weight conversion tables for salt in various books and internet sites, you get a pretty wide range of weights for a cup of regular table salt.  10 oz./cup is about in the middle of the range of weights for table salt.  Warren Anderson's book "Mastering the Craft of Making Sausage" lists weights of 22 grams/tbsp (i.e. 12.4 oz./cup) for regular salt and 12 grams/tbsp (i.e. 6.8 oz/cup) for kosher salt.  amazingribs.com contains the following conversion table for different kinds of salt:

1 tsp Morton's tables salt equals:
1.5 tsp Morton's kosher salt
1.8 tsp Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt
1.8 tsp Morton's pickling salt
3 to 4 or more tsp sea salt

Because of these differences in the density of salt, a brine recipe which specifies the quantity of salt by weight will be more predictable than a brine recipe which specifies the quantity of salt by volume.  There are charts which specify the volume of water and weight of salt required to prepare brines of different salinities.  For example, a brine which is 60 degrees SAL (salometer degrees) will contain 15.837 percent salt by weight.  That is 1.568 pounds (25.088 oz.) of salt per gallon of water, or .784 pounds (12.544 oz.) of salt per half gallon of water. There is a good article on making brines and salinity at http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/sausage-making/curing/making-brine which contains such charts.  See also "Preparation of Salt Brines for the Fishing Industry," Oregon Sea Grant Publication ORESU-H-99-002, which is available at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs/h99002.pdf .
 
Another way to prepare a brine with a specific salinity is to use a salinometer to measure the concentration of the brine, and to adjust the concentration by adding water or salt.  However, that takes a lot of trial and error.  It's faster to use the weights of salt specified on a salinity chart.

It is difficult to predict the salinity of Kummok's salmon brine because his recipe specifies a volume of salt rather than a weight of salt, and because different brands of soy sauce contain different concentrations of salt.  The only way to determine the salt concentration of Kummock's brine recipe for any specific kind of salt and specific brand of soy sauce is by mixing up the volumes of water, salt, and soy sauce which he recommends, and then measuring the concentration of the mixture with a salinometer, before adding any other ingredients such as sugar.

However, you can estimate the salt concentration produced by the water and salt components of Kummok's brine recipe based on the weight-to-volume conversion ratios described above.  Based on the conversion ratio for regular table salt of 10 oz./cup, a cup of regular table salt in half a gallon of water would produce a brine which is about 50 degrees SAL.  However, kosher salt weighs less per cup than regular salt.  Based on Anderson's conversion ratio for kosher salt of 6.8 oz./cup, a cup of kosher salt in half a gallon of water would produce a brine which is about 35 degrees SAL.  Kummok's brine recipe calls for 1 cup of pickling salt in a gallon of water, so if you look just at the salt and water portion of his brine recipe, based on Anderson's conversion ratio for kosher salt, the recipe would produce a brine which is about 18 degrees SAL.

A brine doesn't need to be 60 degrees SAL in order to salt fish for smoking, but the lower the salt concentration in the brine, the longer the fish needs to stay in the brine to reach a desired degree of saltiness.  Longer brining times increase the chances of bacterial growth and spoilage.

The advantage of being accurate and consistent about the salt concentration of your brines is that you can learn how long fish of a certain species, size, thickness, and with or without skin should be left in the brine to produce the degree of saltiness which you like.  If a batch of smoked fish comes out saltier than you prefer, don't leave the next batch in the brine as long.  When I try out a new brine recipe, I adjust the salinity of the water and salt portion of the brine to 60 degrees SAL, because I know how long I like to leave different kinds of fish in a brine of that concentration.