Kummok's Salmon Question

[OTB]

Got a quick question.  I just started to brine a recipe of Kummok's Salmon:
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=107.0

But here is a bit of an urgent question.  I followed the recipe for the brine exactly (using 1 gallon of water)..but he states that he usually adds one gallon of ice cubes.

Is that 1 gallon of ice in addition to the one gallon of water (2gal total)?

The reason I ask is that once I added the fish to the brine, (brine was all mixed at this point) it was too much to fit in my pot, so I poured into a clean cooler, but was still too much liquid.  I had only added the one gallon of water but had to pour 1/4 of the brine down the drain to be able to fit the fish....and then added a bunch of ice on top of that to keep the cooler cold.

Have I diluted my brine at this point?

Should I mix up a concentrated mix of the brown sugar, salt, etc and add it, to make up for the extra water from the ice?

Suggestions please.  I plan on brining this overnight and smoking in the afternoon tomorrow, so if I need to correct this, I need to do it soon.

[KevinG]

I tried to do the math for you, but got lost on how much you actually have in there now. Hopefully Kummok will respond here, but, I believe that it would be a total of 2 gallons of liquid to the salt in his recipe which would be a 14 degree brine. If you didn't put any ice in, that would be a 27 degree brine and you would only brine for half the time, but if you lost 1/4 of the brine and added 1 gallon of ice, then you have a 12 degree brine and need to increase the length of time to 14 hours. Clear as mud?

[OTB]

I tried to do the math for you, but got lost on how much you actually have in there now. Hopefully Kummok will respond here, but, I believe that it would be a total of 2 gallons of liquid to the salt in his recipe which would be a 14 degree brine. If you didn't put any ice in, that would be a 27 degree brine and you would only brine for half the time, but if you lost 1/4 of the brine and added 1 gallon of ice, then you have a 6 degree brine and need to increase the length of time to twice as much. Clear as mud?

OK.  I made the brine with 1 gallon of water as stated in the recipe:
1 gallon cold water
1 quart teriyaki
1 cup pickling salt
2 Lbs brown sugar
2 Tbsp garlic powder
3 Tbsp cayenne pepper

After the brine was made and all mixed up, I had to pour about 1/4 of it out since it would not fit in the igloo.  I then added about 4 scoops of ice (don't think that would be more than a couple of pints).

[KevinG]

Only a couple of pints would put the brine back at 14 degrees and you should use the original brine time of 12 hours.

[OTB]

Thanks.  So it seems that the recipe should have listed 1 gallon of water, and 1 gallon of ice, or a total of 2 gallons one way or another???

[KevinG]

That's the way I interpreted it.

[Kummok]

Sorry for tardy response....spent the better part of the day at a luthier friend's place....LOTS of fun!!

Recipe calls for one Gal cold water and "...about a gallon of ice thrown in...."  That's exactly what I use myself. The ice rarely melts totally before the brining process is completed so it adds about a half gal or so to the mix. Although I expected to get melted ice added to the brine mix when I started doing it this way years ago, I use the ice to keep the fish ice cold throughout the process...more important to me than absolute precision in the water/salt ratio.

If it helps, I normally use an Igloo 'Ice Cube' w/ a 48 qt capacity, which gives me plenty of room for this mix with a double batch of salmon (8 Bradley racks) http://www.igloocoolers.com/products/FullSize/IceCube/263/

[OTB]

thanks Kummok.  I was trying to use an igloo drink cooler (the round ones with the spout in the bottom), since that is the only hard sided cooler I have.  I had converted over to all soft sided coolers years ago since they fold up and are easier to store.

I ended up adding a bit more ice before I went to sleep to make sure it stayed cold all night.  And for good measure I made a small mixture of about a half cup of brown sugar, tablespoon of salt, tablespoon or bit more of teriyaki and couple dashes of the garlic and cayenne.  I mixed this in just to make sure I had not diluted too much.

I am about to lay the fish out on racks on the kitchen counter to form the pellicle for a couple of hours while I go get my coffee (I don't really spend 2 hours at Starbucks for the coffee, but rather the eye candy  ;D  )

I plan to start the smoke at noon and figure it will be done around 5.  This was just a couple of nice fillets from Costco so about 5 pounds in all so will program my new pid as follows:
C01   120    t    1.5       
C02   132    t    2.5           
C03   175    t    1.0           
C04  blank
C05  blank
Co6  blank

Pictures to come as the day goes on.

[OTB]

The salmon turned out good.  It was a bit too salty but I assume it will mellow out after vac sealing and freezing.  Next time I will smoke for longer than 1 hr 20 min, will get a larger cooler to brine in, and will increase that last cook time by 20 minutes (some were still a bit too soft).

Anyways here are the pictures.

Waiting for pellicle to form:


Finished product:





As always, thanks for everybody's help!  This is a great recipe.

[Tommy3Putts]

Good looking salmon.  Well done.

[garbadee]

I have a question about brineing.  I tried one recipe and set in fridge overnight.  Cooked next morning.  Very good but verrrry salty.  Is there a trick I am missing or maybe another brine/cure that uses less salt?

Ed

[KevinG]

There is a corelation between how much salt and how much time to brine and how much meat/fish you have. Unfortunately everyone has different tastebuds, so a lot of it is trial and error. Most recipes are a reasonable compromise.

[ExpatCanadian]

Funny enough, this topic has been on my mind recently too.  A few weeks back I picked up 20kg of salmon from my local fish market and have since done 2 fairly good sized batches of Kummok salmon.  I've done around 6 or 7 batches in total now, and perhaps I've just missed it completely or totally chose to creatively interpret the recipe, but I've always tried to ensure the total water including ice in the recipe is kept to 1 gallon.  So I basically boil the salt and sugar with around a 1/4 gallon of water to dissolve it, then chill this in the fridge until cold.  I then add another 1/2 gallon of cold water and weigh out around 2 lb of ice (actually I do all this in metric...but doesn't matter).  For the larger batches I've been doing recently I've had to 1.5x the recipe to ensure coverage of the fish in my container.

My biggest variable, and the one I finally broke down and asked Kummok about recently, is the salt amount.  1 Cup of salt varies considerably between table, kosher, coarse, fine, pickling, sea salt etc etc and even the same type varies in particle size and density between manufacturers.  I've been using sea salt in my last few batches, some stuff I get really cheap in big bags from a local Chinese supermarket.  I started out using 1 cup....  and it was really good.  Next batch I decided to try to match volume to weight, so I used 8oz...  and again, it was really good...  not really any perceptible salt taste increase.  I should mentioned that for the most part in these 2 batches I've been brining for 12-15 hours.  On my most recent batch this weekend I decided to increase the salt to 10oz and brine for 24 hours just to see what the end result would be....

....well, it's the best batch yet!!  The salt/sweet balance is perfect.... everything just seemed to come together just right in this batch.

So basically, I think Kummok's assertion again and again that you really can't screw this up holds true.

[Rich_91360]

I usually mix my brine in one container and then place fish in an other, THEN add the brine to the fish container.  The goal is to have the right mix, doesn't really matter then if the fish are soaking in 2 quarts or 2 gallons, as long as the  amount of the brine is set at the right level and fish are all covered.  If a long brine time just overhaul the fish every couple of hours
I usually just throw out whatever brine is remaining.