i just smoked some sockeye using granny gutzs recipe. I followed the recipe exactly except i couldnt find mapeline so i used two 1 ounce bottles of mccormick imitation maple. I brined for 19 hours and the filets were about an inch thick. I cut them into 3 or 4 inch pieces and sliced those pieces in the middle down to the skin. I did rinse the brine. It came out so salty i almost didnt eat it. It was so salty i woke up in the middle of the night and chugged 4 bottles of water. That was $30 worth of salmon so i dont wanna do that again, what did i do wrong. Everything i read says a 15% solution of salt=2 cups per gallon and 6-12 hrs brining per 1/2 inch of fish. I still have a bunch of unused brine i was going to use for steelhead. Any ideas
Not to knock your recipe, Marty, but it seems to me you left out a few items. here is a recipe we have been using for over 30 years.
Granny GutZ Smoked Fish Recipe
(Family Secret)
In a 5 gallon bucket -
1 Gallon warm water
2 Cups salt (I use morton's table salt)
2 Cups Brown Sugar
4 Tablespoons garlic powder
8 Tablespoons onion powder
2 ounce bottle of mapeline
1 1/2 cups Karo Corn Syrup
Mix it all real good. Add trimmed filets. I like to cut fish to skin (not through) in 1 1/2 - 2 inch strips. (brine gets in better, smokes better). This is enough brine for a 5 rack Big Chief Smoker. Let brine 6 to 12 hours. Dry on paper towels for at least an hour. Brush with honey if you like. Pepper heavily with crushed or cracked Black Pepper. Preheat smoker 1 hour. Smoke fish 6 to 12 hours or until completely done. Smoking time varies depending on wind and weather. On some occaisions I have finished off in the oven at 200 degrees.
GutZ
That's where we worked it out. Catchin Rainbows out of Potholes Canal and Moses Lake.
Benny Black pointed out that I told him brine time was 24 hours. That is probably more like the truth, say 12 to 24.
The last few batches that I have done, I have thinly sliced the fillets prior to brining and smoked the out of them. Lots more work but very, very good. I have been using quite a lot of cayenne as well.
--------------------
It's good to have friends.
It's better to have friends with boats!
**GutZ**
QuoteI brined for 19 hours
Brining times seem long to me, I would even question the 6-12 hours in the original Granny Gutz instructions for the size of fillet and strength of brine involved. Perhaps try cutting the brine back to one cup salt? Soak fillets for a while post brining rather than just rinse?
As an aside is Mortin table salt iodized? I would make sure to use non-iodised salt if it is. (not seen Mortin's anything on this side of the pond! ::) but most table salt we get is iodized)
Brine sounds ok. But for one inch thick fish I brine 5-7 hours and if thiner then one inch even shorter time.
i did use non iodized salt, im gonna try using some of the leftover brine on a couple trout i just caught but only brine for 3 hrs and see how it is
If your smoked fish is too salty, you left it in the brine too long. Experiment with shorter brining times, keeping in mind that the thinner and leaner (non-oily) the pieces of fish are and the stronger the concentration of the brine, the less time you'll need to brine the fish. Skinned fillets require less brine time.
A good article on proper smoking techniques is Smoking Fish at Home - Safely, Pacific Northwest Extension Publication 238. You can get this article from various sources by Googling the title. The article has this to say about brining fish in preparation for smoking it:
"Salt preserves smoked fish by reducing the moisture content. However, without chemical analysis, it is hard to be certain that a fish has absorbed enough salt. That is why proper cooking [i.e. hot smoking] and refrigerated storage are essential for safety. The following rules of thumb are useful to approximate the proper salt level for smoked fish."
"Salt the fish before smoking in a strong salt solution (brine). Salting fish in a brine that is 1 part table salt (non-iodized and with no anticaking agent) to 7 parts water by volume for 1 hour will work in most cases. For instance, 1 cup of salt with 7 cups of water will salt 2-3 pounds of fish. (This proportion will read approximately 60 degrees SAL on the scale of a salometer. By weight, this formulation would be 1.57 pounds of salt per gallon of water.) A salometer is an instrument that can be purchased from a scientific supply store or a salt manufacturer for measuring the salt concentration of a brine."
"A gutted herring requires about 30 minutes brine time in a refrigerator; large or oily fish (e.g. 2-3 inch chunks or steaks from a 30-pound salmon) require about 2 hours. Decrease the brine time for low fat and skinned fish. When experimenting with brining time, start with 15 minutes per half inch of fish thickness. Fish pieces should not overlap when they are being brined or salt uptake will not be uniform. A smoked fish with a definite - but not unpleasantly high - salt flavor probably has absorbed enough salt. Dry salting techniques are acceptable, and the same general rules apply. However, using a brining solution typically yields a more uniform salt concentration."
"Many recipes call for brines with a lower salt concentration than the 1 part table salt to 7 parts water noted above - but for 18-24 hours. These extended periods offer more opportunity for bacterial growth and possible spoilage later, and probably increase the mess you have to clean up later. For more information on making salt brines, refer to the Oregon Sea Grant publication ORESU-H-99-002, which is available at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs/h9902.pdf." [A more precise web page address is http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/prep-salt-brines ]
Quote from: dtjim on February 24, 2012, 08:08:12 AM
i did use non iodized salt, im gonna try using some of the leftover brine on a couple trout i just caught but only brine for 3 hrs and see how it is
When you say left over brine, is that brine you did not use or are you talking about reusing the same brine. Reusing brine is not safe. The salinity will be much lower, and it may not be effective protecting the fish from food borne bacteria. Also since the salinity is lower the results will be different.
Looking at the brine I agree with Manxman. That is a lot of salt; about 1.25 pounds.
Well guess it is a little strong. Hab I was always taught 2-2-2 what do you think of that? 2 gal water,2cups salt and 2 cups of sugar usually brown and spices.
It depends on what I am brining, and what I want for the end result; such as flavor or curing. So I will vary the amount of salt. 2-2-2 or 1-1-1 is a good basic brine, but I feel timing is just as important as the salinity.
thanks for all the good info please keep it coming there is alot of misleading info out there. no im not reusing any i made a gallon and only used half of it. I just bought a small piece of salmon so i could experiment with it and have a couple fresh trout filets i just caught. Im going to use the leftover brine. Last time i brined for 19 hrs, i was thinking of brining for 8 or 10 hrs this time for the salmon and 3 hrs for the trout..... any thoughts
Quote from: viper125 on February 24, 2012, 02:22:02 PM
Well guess it is a little strong. Hab I was always taught 2-2-2 what do you think of that? 2 gal water,2cups salt and 2 cups of sugar usually brown and spices.
Viper125, with respect to your 2-2-2 brine formula, there are 32 cups of water in 2 gallons of water, so 2 cups of salt in 32 cups of water is only a 1:16 ratio, which is considerably less salty than the 1:7 salt to water ratio which is recommended by the authors of the
Smoking Fish at Home - Safely article.
Dtjim, your recipe calls for 2 cups of salt in one gallon (16 cups) of water, which is a 1:8 salt to water ratio, which is very close to the 1:7 salt to water ratio recommended by the authors of the
Smoking Fish at Home - Safely article. So I suggest that you stick with your recipe, but leave the fish in the brine for a considerably shorter time. Experiment and see what you like. I don't know how thick your Salmon fillets are, but I'd start with 3 hours on the Salmon. Are the trout whole trout with the skin on, filleted trout with the skin on, or filleted trout with the skin off? In general, I'd leave non-oily trout like rainbow trout in the brine for a shorter time than salmon. The oiliness of Lake Trout seems to depend on what they have been eating.
Way to long in the brine. At that ratio 1/3 of the time would have been just about right.
I'm just say'n ;)
Quote from: pmmpete on February 24, 2012, 04:15:03 PM
Quote from: viper125 on February 24, 2012, 02:22:02 PM
Well guess it is a little strong. Hab I was always taught 2-2-2 what do you think of that? 2 gal water,2cups salt and 2 cups of sugar usually brown and spices.
Viper125, there are 32 cups of water in 2 gallons of water, so 2 cups of salt in 32 cups of water is only a 1:16 ratio, which is considerably less salty than the 1:7 salt to water ratio which is recommended by the authors of the Smoking Fish at Home - Safely article.
Dtjim, your recipe calls for 2 cups of salt in one gallon (16 cups) of water, which is a 1:8 salt to water ratio, which is very close to the 1:7 salt to water ratio recommended by the authors of the Smoking Fish at Home - Safely article. So I suggest that you stick with your recipe, but leave the fish in the brine for a considerably shorter time. Experiment and see what you like. I don't know how thick your Salmon fillets and your trout or trout fillets are, but I'd start with 3 hours on the Salmon, and less on the trout, particularly since the trout aren't oily like the salmon.
Well at one time it probably was right. but that's a a lot of salt. Mostly a flavoring instead of a cure these days. Ask that question of different people and they'll all have a different response. My buddy has smoked fish for at least 40 years with the 2-2-2 recipe. Its not so much how much brine there is but the length of time in the brine. Here is a link with some good info he gave me a while back.
http://www.uaf.edu/files/ces/publications-db/catalog/hec/FNH-00325.pdf
Viper125, that article you recommended, Smoking Fish at Home by Chuck Crapo, University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, Publication FNH-00325, is an excellent article! I hadn't seen it before. I rely on the recommendations of professionals like Chuck Crapo for the procedures I use when smoking fish and making sausage and jerky, so it's great to find another authoritative and useful article.
ok i have the fish soaking, the salmon filets are less than an inch thick and the trout is maybe a 1/2'' im going for 3 to 4 hrs for the salmon and half that for the trout and im gonna soak in water instead of just rinsing. Hopefully this time i wont be chugging a gallon of water in the middle of the night lol
Great! You should have better results. You have a 13% brine or about 50° brine; so once you get the brining times zeroed in you will be fine.
just wanted to follow up. The salmon turned out great i meant to brine for 4 hrs but fell asleep and brined for six. Then i meant to soak in water for 30 min but fell asleep again and soaked for 2 hrs but it turned out good wasnt salty at all. used the same brine mixture as what was in my first post
Glad to hear it came out good. I know I'm a bit late to the conversation but I do a lot of store bought salmon and that first recipe that called for 2 cups of salt is double what I use. I don't really follow a recipe but I use apx a galon of water 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of brown sugar along with whatever other spice I feel like throwing in that day. I always soak overnight rinse then throw in the smoker until cooked.
Im doing another batch of salmon and was doing some reading and found another thing i did wrong, might be helpful to someone else. Ive been using canning and pickling salt for my brine. I just found a thread about salts and found out that pickling salt is alot denser and 1 cup pickling salt equals 1 1/2 cups of kosher salt. So i thought i was using two cups but it was really three. oh well lesson learned lol
I usually use a couple of gallons of water and about 1 cup kosher salt (enough for a raw egg to bounce to bottom and float back up) then add 1 cup of brown sugar and about a bottle of liquid smoke. Let sit in brine overnight and smoke in morning.
It depend on which coarser salt. For example the two most common kosher salts, Diamond Crystal and Morton's, vary a great deal. If the recipe specifies Diamond Crystal Kosher then you are using twice as much salt. If the recipe specifies Morton's Kosher you are using maybe 1/4 cup more salt, then what is called for.
I dont think the recipe specified what kind of salt, using a different recipe this time and it just called for non iodized so i used mortons coarse kosher
1 qt water
1/3 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Non Iodized Salt
1 tlbs Garlic (heaping)
1 tlbs Pepper
2 tlbs Vegetable Oil
2 tlbs Vinegar
2 tlbs Soy Sauce
Marinate at least 6 hours
hab i was going by what somebody reposted by one of your posts on this thread about the salt
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=6608.0
I'm basically saying the same thing in the other post about the density of salt. I'm just adding that not all kosher salts are the same. Diamond Crystal kosher salt grain size are about twice as large as Morton kosher. As for the salt volume measurement, I believe a closer amount would be 1 cup pickling salt = 1 1/4 cups Morton's Kosher (or about 2 cups Diamond Crytal kosher).
The recipe you posted and the way that it is written generally refers to a salt that has a grain size of table salt, and pickling salt has that size of grain. If you make a gallon that would be 1 1/3 cups of pickling salt or close to 14 ounces. If you used Morton's Kosher that would be about 11 ounces. I generally will not go higher then 1 cup of pickling salt/gallon (10 ounces).
I went back to the beginning of this thread and see that you used 2 cups of Morton's table salt to one gallon of water. That is 20 ounces (1 1/4 pounds) of salt per gallon, plus a 1/2 cup of soy sauce. That is a lot more salt then the original recipe calls for, which is 14 ounce. As mentioned by Manxman, you will need to reduce you brine times, and I would bring the salt amount back to where the original recipe called for; and/or reduce the salt to one cup.