Hi All
I will be smoking about 6 lbs of chum salmon tomorrow. It is currently taking a long leisurely bath in a brine of citrus and aromatics. My question is how long should I keep the smoke on? I have had good luck in the past with 2 - 3 hours on Coho. This is my first time smoking Chum. My brother went to Ketchikan and came back with 20lbs of it.
Thanks
Joe
Go with what you know Joe!! Use the same amount of smoke
I go 2 hours with alder
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Not much difference is smoke "absorbability" (now THERE'S a word!) between Silvers and Chum in my own experience. I'm one of the few I've seen apply smoke throughout the entire 3.5 - 4 hours that I have the salmon in the smoker...that being said, be forewarned that whenever I'm asked, "How much smoke for salmon?", my answer will always be, "ALL of it!". ;) ;D
Thanks Guys
I'm thinking I'll go with 2 hrs minimum. Chum salmon seems to get some bad press. This is my first experience with it. I was just curious about what others do with it.
Thanks
Joe
Quote from: JML54 on September 08, 2011, 05:37:12 PM
....Chum salmon seems to get some bad press......
Nothing wrong with Chum that's been picked and processed right....it's just not as forgiving for bad handling.
To illustrate, I have actually done the side-by-side comparison during smoking class and, without knowing what they were getting, class members ate, raved and, (with the exception of one alert connoisseur who correctly noticed a slightly drier texture), nobody could tell the difference between the Chum and the Copper River Red.
Like many other "press stories", don't give 'em much credibility! Your brother did not slight you at all by giving you Chum for smoking (unless he kept the feeder King to himself :o )
I used to do lots of it, as I had a source who gave it to me free--but that was backin the day when I was using an old fridge and the smoke was not as concentrated as in the Bradley. I used to do several hours of smoking and many hours of drying with just warm air moving past it. I liked to hard smoke the chum until it was quite dry and chewy.
T2
Ok, I must be the exception, although I have only done silver and king salmon, I always apply smoke throughout the whole process cooking process which is normally between 7-8 hours following the Bradley directions of starting with low heat and slowly increasing.