Bradley Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

[Kummok]

Sorry for delayed response, O-1....After 20 years w/ a Mac, I finally suffered a crash on my laptop I couldn't (rather, I WOULDN'T!) fix myself so I've been offline as I've been traveling since Oct.

As far as making the white King darker, I wouldn't even recommend messing with that nasty stuff...better to just send it to me for proper disposal..... ;) ;) ;D  Kidding aside, I've thrown the white in with the rest and never even tried to get the color different so can't give you experienced advice on how to get it darker. Mine turns out kinda carmally, maple syrupy looking but has the proper oily King texture and tastes great. I've commented myself that the white doesn't present as well but defy anyone to tell the difference in a dark room!  ;)

Hope you're well by now T2....I was going to suggest to you that when you locate the missing winter springs (is that an oxymoron?!?!?), slap a couple on the behind and send them North, but I've been hangin out in Mexico, Arizona and SoCal of late so I'd miss 'em anyway! Should be back in time to make some ptarmigan nervous though!

[tsquared]

Kummok-- I'll slap those springs on the behind and put them right in my smoker!! ;D I'm feeling better but I have been too busy between working and house renovations to get out fishing. As today was a holiday I was working on the house--nice sunny day--and I look out at the bay below my place and there's a #$%%$* guy anchored up fishing halibut! Talk about rubbing a guy's nose in it! Oh well, we're within a few weeks of being finished so we'll get everything back in order for Christmas. One of these days you're going to have to fall off the trail North and come to the island for a visit. The boys are saying the springs are here--8 to 14 lbs--small but hungry.
T2

[Phoneguy]

I would like to report my success.

I tried Kumok's recipe, but used only 1 lb of demera sugar. I had picked up 3 fresh frozen pinks from the local store relatively inexpensive, figuring that if I stuffed up the recipe it would not be to expensive. That recipe makes for a lot of brine I discovered, so I poured about half of it into a cleaned out Ice Cream bucket, put the lid on it and into the fridge for the future (before the fish went in). I could have poured off more...but thats all about learning right! Fish were filleted while still partly frozen, cut into 3/4" - 1" slices and then into the brine. I bought a rubbermaid tote just for food processing, fits perfectly in the fridge. 12 hours or so later I took them out of the brine, and realized I had forgotten to pull the little bones out. It is a lot more work to pull the bones out after the fish is cut up ...Dooh! I had also found some cake cooling racks at the grocery store, that, with a little modification fit right into the bottom of the bradley racks. Set up to form a pellicle and back into the fridge for a few hours.. Well life and family happened, so I got back to them 14 hours later! No harm, nice pellicle formed. So into my almost new Digital smoker. 1.5 hours at 120 (lowest setting), 3 hours at 140, and ~1 hour at 180, with maple smoke for 2 hours, they were done. When I first tasted them I was a little disappointed, to salty I thought, then I realized it wasn't the salt but Cayenne I was getting...Maybe to hot? Certainly edible, maybe to hot? Couple of other people tried it and pronounced it good. Maybe to hot I kept on thinking? Next day I had some more...not to hot, good...perhaps a touch more sugar. Most important test was the wife test though! She likes them! Not bad for a second adventure with the Bradley!

Thanks to everyone who has shared their wisdom here!
James

[pokeweed]

Well,

I'm trying this recipe for my first time.  I'm brining overnight 7 pounds of salmon from Costco.  I plan to give it about 14 hours, then take it out for most of the day tomorrow while my country style pork ribs are smokin, then smoke the salmon tomorrow night, freeze it, and take it out for mother's day.

I have 2 questions:
1)  Does anybody know how long this recipe will last in the refrigerator?  If I smoke it Monday, will it be okay Sunday?  Or, should I freeze it and just take it out the day before?
2)  The recipe makes a lot of brine.  I noted in the forum that the brine can be reused?  Can I reuse it even though it has been used to brine the salmon already?  Could I just store it in an old gallon milk jug?  Would it need to be refrigerated?

Thanks!  Can't wait to try it!

Ethan

[FLBentRider]

I would not re-use the brine. you could scale back the ingredients so it doesn't make so much.

My last batch kept in the fridge more than a week, and the food police did not harass me.

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi Phone Guy;

To save on some clean up; instead of using cooling racks, I invert the Bradley trays. This elevates the salmon so a good pellicle can form on all sides.

[1wired1]

Made this yesterday with Kummok's recipe. I used the soy and cut all the ingredient amounts in half except the garlic powder which I forgot to cut in half. I was only making 5lbs tops so I didn't need that much brine. Came out really good, not to sweet or salty. Cooking times and temps got a bit screwy. It was over 90 outside and was hard to regulate the temps.

Thanks for the recipe, it was my first time smoking salmon.

1w1

[Dancindon]

Kummock: When I used your brine on a batch of fresh sockeyes from Chitina, they came out fine. When I repeated with the same brine receipe after the fish had been frozen a couple of weeks, that batch came out WAY too salty. A friend had the same experience. My guess is that freezing causes expansion of the water in the cells of the meat, causing the cell walls to break, which lets the salt penetrate more easily. Judging from this experience, I would cut the salt at least in half when using frozen fish.

I don't remember seeing others comment on this here. Have others had the same experience?

BTW, the same thing happened on my second batch of Caribou jerky made with frozen vs. fresh meat --- different receipe, but same over-salted result with identical marinade (soy + garlic) when I used frozen meat.

Comments?
Thanks, Don in Fairbanks

[Habanero Smoker]

Kummock: When I used your brine on a batch of fresh sockeyes from Chitina, they came out fine. When I repeated with the same brine receipe after the fish had been frozen a couple of weeks, that batch came out WAY too salty. A friend had the same experience. My guess is that freezing causes expansion of the water in the cells of the meat, causing the cell walls to break, which lets the salt penetrate more easily. Judging from this experience, I would cut the salt at least in half when using frozen fish.

I don't remember seeing others comment on this here. Have others had the same experience?

BTW, the same thing happened on my second batch of Caribou jerky made with frozen vs. fresh meat --- different receipe, but same over-salted result with identical marinade (soy + garlic) when I used frozen meat.

Comments?
Thanks, Don in Fairbanks

You may be on to something here. When meat is frozen slowly, such as in a home refrigerator jagged ice crystals form and damage the cells. Because the cell are damaged when the meat thaws the cells loose a lot of their liquid. You may have notice this liquid lost when you thawed the fish. Since there is a smaller amount of liquid in the cells; it may be that during osmosis there is not exchange of liquid, but just almost full strength brine filling the empty cells.

I've recently read members brining their fish while it thaws (I wouldn't do this on thick cuts of meat). Probably osmosis would properly occur under those conditions.

[Kummok]

I haven't noticed any changes in that regard but, since it involves personal taste, it might be that my 60 year old taste buds are shot!?!?  ;)  If it's repeatable then I'd think you're on to something. The explanations offered certainly sound plausible (but then again, so do the explanations I've heard for buying a Shar-Pei .... :o ;) )

While I don't have that same experience with my own smoking processes, I do know that there are several issues associated with freezing salmon and using again for food, e.g. pre/post rigor freezing, brine freezing, gaping, etc which deal more with commercial processing.  This website gives you more info on brining than most brains want to endure http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/70/Brining   Additionally, this website actually gives you some lab time to conduct your own brine experiments, (be certain to take a match and lighter fluid to use on your hair just in case you need a valid to run out of the lab screaming "Too much info!, Too much info!")  http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/28308-brining/   I find both sites extremely helpful to better understanding the process of brining...but then again, I don't buy Shar-Peis!  :o  )  Token apologies in advance to any Shar-Pei owners seeing this post....not for my comments but for the fact of you actually owning one :-\

[BuyLowSellHigh]

Your theory is sound and I suspect HabS has hit it on the head.  Freezing does cause the water in the cells to expand and it can rupture cell walls.  Slower freezing produces larger crystals that are more apt to damage or break cell walls.  That is one of the reasons why many frozen food processors now use flash freezing with liquid nitrogen.  The effect is more pronounced with goods that typically have high water content cells, such as vegetables - they tend to get mushy from cell damage and fracture in the freezing process. 

[Whytefish]

Hi,

New to smoking fish and trying Kummoks recipe on Northern Pike. Was wondering if I should rotate the racks around in the smoker or just leave them racked as is? Thanks much!

[Tenpoint5]

Rotate them around.
Welcome aboard as well

[waterkc]

Kummok, I bow to your mad fish smokin skills man, I did three racks of Alaskan caught Salmon on Monday. It was to say the least incredible. Smoked it on Alder and the fish was in the marinade for about 7 days. Holly crap this is good. I can't wait to do some more.  ;D

[Kummok]

ThanX for the kudos WaterKC. I'd love to take the credit but, truth be told, it's the salmon that deserves it. The recipe I posted years back has always just been meant as encouragement to help nudge folks off the starting block and let the salmon do its own magic!  ;)  You can also try it with other fish, venison, moose, caribou and see if it works out as well for your own taste....