freezer cleanout fish smoke

[tsquared]

This year was a pink salmon year on southern Vancouver Island. (Every second year) Starting in July through to late August you can catch a gazillion of the things. They are not bad grilled on the same day you catch them--mild tasting, 3-5 lb salmon. My wife loves them way more than I do as I am a spring (king) salmon fan and the pinks I catch are incidental(In fact they are a real pita as they chew up your bait and get in the way).She insisted I freeze a dozen or more pinks and I did, thinking I could smoke some. I did a batch of 4 fish with Kummok's brine with whole fillets a couple of months ago . Dried them for several hours and then smoked them with alder for 2 hours. I never got the temp above 145 because the final step was pressure canning them in  small mason jars where they would be cooked anyway. When they came out of the smoker I peeled the skin off (but wasn't too particular) and added 1/4 tsp of vinegar to each jar to soften the bones. The result was incredible. For an invite to appies and drinks, I add 1/2 an onion, chopped, and some cream cheese to a jar of smoked pink salmon, grab a pack of good crackers to spread it on and people go nuts! My mil has made it clear I'm not welcome for Christmas dinner unless I bring a couple of jars. This weekend I needed to make some room in my freezer for some island lamb and venison so yesterday I cleaned out the remaining pinks  to start another batch. I will fillet them this morning and throw them in the brine. I'll post some pics later.
T2

[KevinG]

Something smells a little fishy around here.

[Kummok]

Great use for truly good salmon, T2! Like chum/dog salmon, too many (ignorant, IMHO) folks up here think pinks are trash fish and unusable....little do they know!! Most common use of pinks up here, (by true salmon lovers), is smoked and canned (or just plain canned).....er, at least for human consumption....Many of us also freeze pinks whole, stack them like firewood in old chest freezers and feed the "pink-cicles" to the VERY appreciative dogs during the winter.

Looking forward to the pics!

[tsquared]

Many of us also freeze pinks whole, stack them like firewood in old chest freezers and feed the "pink-cicles" to the VERY appreciative dogs during the winter.

:D My hound gets all the trimmings. I have done the freeze 'em whole for the dog thing with mackerel but we haven't had a serious infestation of those things for a few years.(thank God)
T2

[Quarlow]

I agree with you both. I myself hated those stinky little pinks when I worked on the commercial trollers, but as for throwing them in the smoker or just on the bbq they are great.  I do prefer dogs for smoking as they tend to be larger and not too thick so they smoke real nice, but nothing wrong with a few pinkys in the smoker too.

[tsquared]

Quarlow--Another old commercial troller, huh. I did it for 11 or 12 years before the bottom fell out. I agree--200 pinks flipping slime all over the deck does tend to put you off. :P
T2

[Quarlow]

My worst day of pinks was about 200 for the morning and afternoon. Then around 4:00 pm they started, from 4 till 9:30pm we boated nearly 1300 for a grand total of 1500 at which point we stowed the gear and started to work on the deck load for about 7 or 800 left to clean and ice. We worked till 12:30 am when the capt. said he was going to make some dinner. I continued cleaning till they were done and jumped down in the hold to ice them. Still waiting for the dinner call, I iced till 3:30 am and finally I said to hell with it. I still had probably 200 left. I went into the wheelhouse and there was no capt. The bastard went and made himself and sandwhich and went to bed leaving me down in the ice hold. Then at 5:00am he fires up the engines and starts to yell at me to get up and set the gear. When I told him if he called me once more before 10:00am I was going to throw him overboard with a cannonball on each leg.( of course I was very diplomatic when I spoke with him). He left me alone till I got up and he had breakfast waiting for me too. So you know the smell of a pink when you cut their gut open do you? I can't stand that smell, no other salmon smells like that. ewww. When I started on the boats our season was 5 months long, when I quit we were down to 3 openings of about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks. It wasn't even worth leaving the dock for. 

[tsquared]

Here is a picture of the fillets in the brine.Kept them there for 12 hours.



And on the counter ready to go downstairs to dry overnight in the cool basement.



This morning out of the basement and into the smoker.

3 hours in the smoker, 2hours of smoke with temp going from 100 to 140 before I pulled them out.Normally I wouldn't have been happy with the very moist texture but because the destination was into the canning jars, they were perfect.

Finally, the finished product--2 dozen jars of great eats. The 2 with the rings still on didn't seal so I used one in a smoked salmon and cheese omelet for dinner--2 thumbs up from my wife.
T2

[Quarlow]

Very nice T2

[tsquared]

We took Christmas dinner to my uncle's place on Salt Spring Island as he has been in and out of the hospital all fall and was unable to travel. He is 89 years old, a WWII airforce vet and is still as smart as a whip. When he saw us coming through the door with the turkey, all the fixings and booze, his first question was "Did you bring the smoked salmon?" I told him, "Give me 5 minutes Uncle Art, and you'll have a plateful." I sat down with him and we shared some smoked salmon on crackers and a bottle of wine. The look on his face as he ate his first piece is all the feedback I ever need to keep pursuing this hobby--it made my Christmas.
T2

[Quarlow]

I know what ya mean. My sil will not eat fish for nothing, don't matter how you cook it. So we were having a family dinner there one day and I brought my smoked salmon as usual. My brother literaly force her to try it. You should have seen the faces she was making, I thought she was going to chuck before it even got to her mouth. When she was finally coerced into getting it in her mouth and started to chew it she says "hey this is pretty good it doesn't even taste like fish" to which I said "when was the last time you eat fish" and she can't even ever remember trying fish but her mom told her she wouldn't eat fish as a little girl so she just kept telling her that she didn't like it. Now she loves my smoked salmon and asks me to bring it all the time.

[Slamdunk]

I think Pinks are great on the BBQ, and a lot of fun to catch on a light rod,  but they are too thin for smoking. All that work and you get a lot of unintended bad jerky.

[tsquared]

I think Pinks are great on the BBQ, and a lot of fun to catch on a light rod,  but they are too thin for smoking. All that work and you get a lot of unintended bad jerky.

You're right SD but to prevent that I trim the belly flaps and just do the thicker pieces. The 2nd thing I do is not bring the smoker temp above 140 and only have them in for a couple of hours. They are going in  the can anyways and therefore it's not important that they are cooked all the way through.
T2

[wyogoob]

I've canned pinks.  I've smoked pinks.  But I've never canned smoked pinks.

Geeze, where have I been.



Very nice pictorial and story.

[Quarlow]

I tried to smoke a canned pink once, but it left the jar with a funny taste. :P :P ;D