Lox

[RossP]

First I want to thank Spyguy for the recipe for Lox. I have been wanting to make it for the past year and this past weekend proved to be the right time for it. I had three Coho left in the freezer, 8 pinks and it was the wife Birthday. I got my son to fillet and brine the Pinks at his place on Saturday and I filleted and deboned the Coho after work on Saturday night. I had the Coho fillet and all the pin bones removed by midnight ( I started at 11:00 ) and then they went into the fridge until Sunday afternoon. Son brought the Pinks over after Church on Sunday and we got them going in the Bradley to make some Indian Candy.


Smoke rolling on the Pinks

Then it was time to mix the dry brine for the Lox. At 2:30 the Coho was nicely packed in the dry brine and in the fridge for the next eight hours.


Coho getting packed into the dry brine.

Then it was time to get the yardbird ready for the Big Easy, along with some Chicken breast done on the grill, done with Cajun rub. I used some of my Cajun rub on the bird iin the big easy also. The 5 1/2 lb. bird went into the BE at 4:30 and I pulled it out at 5:30. On Sunday we had terrible weather, everything from a little sun to rain, hail and blowing winds. We had to set up a tarp to protect the cooking area.


OBS and BE doing their thing.

Dinner was served, sorry no pics of the bird and everyone enjoyed the meal. After dinner was cleaned up we bagged the Indian Candy.



After all the guests had left I took a bit of a breather for the next round.
At 10:30 it was time to get the Coho out of the Dry brine and into the wet brine.


A few pieces rinsed and ready for the wet brine.

Into the wet brine at 11:00pm Sunday. Monday morning at 7:00AM, now you have to understand that I do not get up that early any longer, I work from noon to 8:00pm or later Tuesday to Saturday so getting up before 7:00am on a Monday usually means I am going fishing upcountry a few hours away, but I wanted to make sure I followed all the instructions that Spyguy laid out. So the fish came out of the brine and was freshed for the next 30 minutes. Then I left it to dry for the next two hours with a fan blowing on it. At 9:30 it went into the smoke with a small pan of ice.





I gave it 8 bisquettes of Maple as I found out on Monday morning I had no Alder left ::) The temp in the smoker never went over 60F, it was a chilly day on Monday. The original pan of ice did not fully melt.


Finish Lox

We tried the Lox and it was great I am glad that I bagged most of it before trying it.

[Habanero Smoker]

I have to agree SpyGuy's recipe and brining methods makes the best lox I have ever tasted; either smoked or unsmoked.