Hey there everyone, I'm new to the forum but have been smoking fish with my Bradly four rack digital smoker for years. Here is my own smoked salmon recipe, can use any salmon, but I prefer sockeye or coho, if you use spring salmon you may have to cut pieces a little smaller. I use 4 ounce pieces and that seems to work the best for everything. Also I'm from Kitimat, BC Canada so i'll try to use standard measurements but if i forget im sorry
Ingredients for Dry Brine:
1 Bag (1kg) of Dark Demerrara Sugar(pardon the spelling)
1 box of coarse salt
I use a large mixing bowl and, depending on how many fish im doing, a large tupper ware container or small coleman cooler. In the mixing bowl I combine 1 cup of salt for every 2 cups of sugar, I find 4 cups of sugar to 2 cups of salt will do about 4 fillets of medium sized(8-12 lbs) of salmon.
Mix the sugar and salt thuroughly in the mixing bowl and sprinkle over a single layer of fish skin side down. Layer fish and mixture until fish or mixture is used up.
Place in refridgerator or cold room NO LONGER THAN 8 Hours, I like 7 hours. But no longer than 8 or it will be too salty. I then rinse fish in cold water to remove salt, and set fish aside to place into a marinade.
Marinade Ingredients:
2 quart soy sauce
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup liquid honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup spiced rum
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon ginger
Mix ingredients in large mixing bowl and pour over all the fish in your tupperware or cooler and place in refridgerator or cold room for up to 36 hours, can be as little as 8 hours but the longer the more flavourfull.
Remove fish from marinade and place on oiled bradley smoker racks,may take 6-8 racks ( i stack my racks by flipping them). I let sit on racks in cool dry place for 1-2 hours, or until a shiny coating appears on fish.
Start up you bradly smoker, but just use the smoker element not the heating element. This should obtain about 120-130 degrees which is perfect temperature to start.
Brush fish with maple syrup and place in preheated smoker for 2 hours. After 2 hours, brush fish with maple syrup again and try to get your smoker to 140 degrees f. Smoke at this temperature for another 3 hours. After 3 hours, open smoker, brush fish with maple syrup and try to obtain 150-160 degrees f in your smoker, BUT TURN OFF THE SMOKE. I find 4-5 hours of smoke is plenty, too much makes the fish taste bitter. When the smoker hits 150-160 degrees, let the fish stay in the smoker for 2-3 hours. Then remove fish, brush with maple syrup and let cool.
Well, that was pretty involved but I find it turns out awesome, let me know if you try this and tweek it id like to see some feedback :)
Welcome aboard :)
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Welcome.
I been looking over your recipe and thinking man that 36 hours to wait for your fish before smoking them just is way over my time limit.
You should check out the recipe from Kummok at the top. Its a sticky here. I do the brush my salmon with the maple syrup like you do but combining your salt to the brine mixture will cut you time down big time. Any thing longer than twelve hours is way over kill.