Bradley Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

[tsquared]

demerara will be fine--you'll see-you'll be the easter hero!
T2

[sgaberdeen]

Thanks for the reply T-squared. Its in the smoker now. Smells great.
                                     
                                                                                     Gary

[ExpatCanadian]

Well, I've done it.  My wife HATES smoked salmon....  has never liked it.... and was pretty darn skeptical when I informed her that my next smoke was gonna be a bunch of salmon.

...so, backing up a little... I hauled my backside out of bed at 4am last Friday morning (>:( >:( >:() to head off to my local fish market, Billingsgate, which happens to be one of the oldest in the world and the biggest in the UK!  It's quite the experience....  and one I'd definately recommend if any of you happen to find yourselves in London.  Anyway, enough about that...  this is about the salmon not the market!

I bought 6 1/2 kg of Altlantic farmed salmon fillets, freshly "caught" the day before and packed in ice for their trip to the market.  So i guess when i bought them they were around 18 hours out of water, not bad and certainly better than getting it from the supermarket.  I know...  farmed salmon... yuck etc...  I really do agree, but with farmed at £6.80/kg and wild at £24.00/kg (when you can even find it) there just isn't much choice in the matter.  I'd love to catch my own, but that's not practical here either.  So...  farmed it is for now.

Anyway, got it home and into the brine....  used the most popular recipe on this forum (and the recipes forum), you all know the one I'm talking about ;) ;).  Brined for around 14 hours...  let air dry for about 3 hours before deciding the pellicle wasn't forming quickly enough.  Stuck 'em in my convection oven with no heat, just the fan on for another hour and that sorted it out nicely!

Into the smoker, used 2 hours smoke in total, 2/3 Crown Royal oak and 1/3 apple.  Unfortunately I noticed the little fat blobs forming on the surface of the fillets even at the low temperature (I used 120F for 1.5 hours)  I decided if that was how they were going to behave there wasn't much I could do about it!

I had to go out for a while and decided to "hold" them at the middle temperature of 140F for 6 hours....  turned out to be more like 8 hours at 140F and the most incredible thing happened!  All those little fat nodules DISAPPEARED!  Almost like they got reabsorbed back into the fish!  I'm pretty sure they didn't drip off as the drip pan and water was still fairly clean, and the finishe dproduct is still REALLY moist.  Anyway, finished them off with 1.5 hours at 180F and as it was approaching midnight and my IT was still only 128F I cranked it up to 200F for 30 minutes which brought them up to an IT of 137F.  Done deal....  into the fridge (after an appropriate few bedtime snacks to make sure they were ok!)

Anyway, next morning my wife agreed to try it...  I knew it was a real moment of truth because if she didn't like this there was no way I'd get her to try smoked salmon again, no matter what I did to it.  Well, I need not have worried...  SHE LOVED IT!  So...  long story short, the recipe still holds it's own....  and has managed to convert one more person to loving smoked salmon!

So...  got a nice little supply in the freezer now....  which I suspect won't last long!

[Carter]

Another Smoked Salmon convert via the Bradely.  It's the same in my house TD.

You're going to love it too.  Get yourself a vacuum sealer (if you don't already have one) and now anytime you're invited anywhere that requires you to bring something - boom - there it is, magically in your freezer.

You start getting invited a lot of places.

Carter

[smokeitall]

Well after your post tdcooper I think I am going to have to go out and see if I can get some fresh salmon.  The salmon I am used to is from Lake Michigan, I never smoked it though.  It was always ok but the first time I tried Alaskan fresh caught salmon, wow what a difference.  So my mission for the next few weeks is to try and find some and follow the recipe and also see if my wife will give it a try.

[ExpatCanadian]

Carter, I certainly agree that I need a vacuum sealer....  my current method is slightly more manual involving partially closing a Ziploc bag leaving only a tiny hole, sucking REALLY hard and quickly closing it completely.  Works pretty good...  but usually results in me nearly passing out after a few from the headrush!!  Don't worry, once closed I do give the seal a rinse....  wouldn't wanna gross anyone out too much!

I'm kinda under a self-imposed moratorium on gadgets for the moment....  I go through stages of the serious "I Wants" and generally "I Gets"  ;D, and never have any real issue with the "trouble and strife" (for you non-brits, that's Cockney Rhyming Slang...  look it up here!)  But, I've been buying a lot of stuff lately, and think maybe i should give it a rest for a few weeks at least  :D.

Smokeitall....  good luck with your attempt.  Is the Lake Michigan stuff farmed?  Can you buy wild Alaskan where you are? One nice thing at least about the farmed stuff here is that the distance to market is only about 8 hours by road (typically from Scotland).... so it still stays fairly cheap.  Alaska ain't close to anywhere except Northern Canada and Russia!!  Where does yours have to come from?

[smokeitall]

tdcooper
Lake Michigan is one of the Midwest Great Lakes in which I grew up on.  The lake is about 307 miles long, 118 miles wide, max depth is 925 feet, and 1,660 miles of shoreline.  It is 1 of 5 great lakes in the Midwest.  They are all fresh water lakes and I believe that is the difference.  The Salmon range in weight up to 44 lbs.

[ExpatCanadian]

Thanks for the geography lesson  ;) ;)....  but I'm actually Canadian, only masquerading as a Brit while I live in the UK! So I'm well aware of the Great Lakes we share between our (home) countries  :)

My question was more trying to determine if the salmon you get from Lake Michigan is wild caught or commerically farmed in the lake waters.... kinda like they do up in Scotland...  and where you might search for Alaskan salmon, being somewhat far away and having my home country in between you and that state!  Does it get shipped in to local markets, or are you relying on a friendly fisherman to mail you some?

The wild caught stuff here is super expensive....  and it doesn't even have to travel that far, so I was quite interested in the economics of obtaining it when catching it yourself is probably not that viable an option....

[Tenpoint5]

Been running up to Milwaukee for the past three years in the fall, and going Salmon fishing with my BIL. 5 fish a day limit.

[smokeitall]

Oops sorry about that tdcooper.

That Salmon that I was referring to from Lake Michigan was caught by me, my brother, or friends...never purchased any.  So it was fresh.  Also caught Brown Trout.

The fresh salmon I have had from Alaska was from a guy that works for me that went on vacation and went on a charter and brought a whole bunch back with him, and cooked it for us.  It was fantastic.  I hope to get up there for a fishing trip someday

[Kummok]

Great job on the wife "conversion" TD! Seen it happen many times and it's a wonderful thing to see!

If I'm reading right, your actual time in the Bradley was around 10 hours...if so, you'll really like Silver (Coho) salmon if you ever see it come up in the local market. Also look for Chum or Pink, two other species that come out on the drier side but with excellent flavor (opps, make that "flavour"  ;) )

BTW, if you're not a professional writer, you should give it some thought...loved reading your post!

P.S.
Alaska is indeed closer to somewhere besides just Russia and Canada (YT/BC)....on some days, it bumps up against heaven!!  ;) ;D

[ExpatCanadian]

Kummok, Sorry...  was thinking 2 dimensionally when I wrote that about proximity of Alaska to the rest of the world....  forgot about looking up!

I will certainly look out for some Coho's over here.  I used to catch them off the coast of Vancouver Island as a young teenager.  I had an uncle who lived out there.... he still does actually, in Qualicum Beach, and he was good friends with an old hockey legend named Howie Meeker who, if you're into hockey, you may have heard of.  Anyway, Howie had a great old boat called the "Golly Gee"...  which again, if you know about Howie, will make sense!  Anyway, I have some fantastic memories of long weekends spent in and around the San Juan islands salmon fishing with the 2 of them, the only unfortunate thing was as a "kid" I didn't really qualify for my own share of the catch....  except to eat what was served to me that evening, which was pretty darn delicious in it's own right.  As luck would have it, I'm actually planning a couple of weeks in BC this summer with my wife, as that's where her family is and we're planning to go visit that very uncle on Vancouver Island.  Now you got me thinking...  I wonder if Howie still has that boat!!??  ;) ;) ;)

PS.  Thanks for the writing compliment.  I don't write professionally, only for fun.  You're not the first to have mentioned this...  hmmm... never gave it much thought....

[Caneyscud]

Man, that is pretty cool - salmon fishing with Howie Meeker around the San Juans.  What a heady time for a teenager.  Meeker's career was before I was born and when he worked for HNIC I was pretty hard core playing and watching football and baseball.  But now after being hooked on hockey, I've heard of him quite often.  Our color analyst here for the Predators, Terry Crisp talks about Meeker.   While Crispy was one of the infamous Broadstreet Bullies, winning Stanley Cups,  Meeker was doing the color for HNIC.  He has to be getting up in age - does he fish anymore?

Shakespeare
The Bard of Hot Aire
Pontificator Extraordinaire'

[ExpatCanadian]

Caneyscud, after my post I Googled him half expecting to read an obituary, but apparently he is alive and well and still living in Parksville, BC which is where he lived  back then.  He's 85 now...  and I have no idea if he still fishes....  but I imagine my uncle still knows him so I'll certainly find out!  How cool would it be if I could go out for a day with him again this summer?  Probably shouldn't get my hopes up...  at 85 I'm not so sure he'll still be up for pulling a salmon rig...  but who knows?

[Carter]

I have great memories of Howie Meeker as a kid.  He was one of the guys that made me realize that I like to immitate people.  I really like doing Bryan Murray of the Ottawa Senators but the bad taste police (my wife and mother) usually shut that act down really quick - and they're right to do it - meanwhile my Dad is off in the corner pretending he's not laughing.

In any event, immitation is the highest form of flattery right?

Just for fun I googled Howie Meeker and found some great old clips.  If you like hockey nostalgia, you're gonna love these.  "C'mon keep your stick on the ice!!!"

http://archives.cbc.ca/programs/1564/

Carter