Kummock salmon brining question

[canadiansmoker]

As far as the timing went, it turned out I wasn't as busy on Saturday as originally planned (the weather was really bad here in Calgary this weekend), so I was able to brine the whole batch for the required 12 hours. The fish turned out great. I can't believe how much oil is in the king salmon compared to the Atlantic farmed salmon. The difference is night and day. I did end up with some "boogers" on some of the fish pieces, but they all tasted great. Odd thing when smoking the salmon though, the temp difference betwen my Maverick and my Bradley DBS is quite a bit more than before. It appears my DBS is consistently showing about 30-40 degrees higher than my Maverick. It used to swing both ways about 10-20 degrees, but now the Bradley is consistently higher, and I had the Maverick very close to the Bradley sensor. I'm going to check my Maverick tonight using the boiling water test to see if it is still accurate.

Thanks for everyone's help on this.

[ExpatCanadian]

Glad it turned out...  I'm just gearing up for another salmon smoke myself.  I've now got a full contingent of 8 racks, so can properly fill the smoker with pairs of inverted racks.

Say...  Kummok, I was reading your response to canadiansmoker's previous post about maximum capacity for salmon in the OBS:

I'm w/ FLBR.....I average about 10-15 lbs doubling up on the racks in my OBS....that's bitesize pieces and arranging so that pieces don't touch....

....and was wondering what you recommend for a rack rotation strategy under these circumstances to ensure even finishing of all the pieces?  I can see it being kind of significant when using your multi-temperature approach, so would like to know what you do?

[canadiansmoker]

Tdcooper, when I rotate my racks I usually move the racks up by 1 space and move the top rack to the bottom. I also turn the racks around at the same time (the part of the rack that was at the front of the smoker is turned around so that it is at the back of the smoker). I turn the racks because there is a heat difference between the front of the smoker and the back.

I usually do this 2 or 3 times during the smoke to ensure all the pieces get a fairly even heat distribution. Of course I do this as fast as possible so that I lose the least amount of heat possible in the smoker. If some of the pieces are smaller than others I usually try to keep those pieces on the same racks since it is harder to keep track of the cooking process if you have thicker and thinner pieces on the same rack. If some racks are done before others I'll just pull them out from the smoker sooner than others.

[Kummok]

In all honesty ExPat, I don't rotate racks....once in a while, I'll get a few well-done pieces near the back....those just get immediately culled and eaten! There's been some times in the past where I was distracted with the temp, they got a little hot and I ended up with some crispy critters...those just went into a baggie and shaken with some cajun spices and passed off as "on-purpose" spicy pieces.. ;) ;D  Folks wanted more!!

[ExpatCanadian]

I like your style... low maintenance smoking works for me!