what did i do wrong

[dtjim]

just wanted to follow up. The salmon turned out great i meant to brine for 4 hrs but fell asleep and brined for six. Then i meant to soak in water for 30 min but fell asleep again and soaked for 2 hrs but it turned out good wasnt salty at all. used the same brine mixture as what was in my first post

[wthr_dude]

Glad to hear it came out good.  I know I'm a bit late to the conversation but I do a lot of store bought salmon and that first recipe that called for 2 cups of salt is double what I use.  I don't really follow a recipe but I use apx a galon of water 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of brown sugar along with whatever other spice I feel like throwing in that day.  I always soak overnight rinse then throw in the smoker until cooked.

[dtjim]

Im doing another batch of salmon and was doing some reading and found another thing i did wrong, might be helpful to someone else. Ive been using canning and pickling salt for my brine. I just found a thread about salts and found out that pickling salt is alot denser and 1 cup pickling salt equals 1 1/2 cups of kosher salt. So i thought i was using two cups but it was really three. oh well lesson learned lol

[watchdog56]

I usually use a couple of gallons of water and about 1 cup kosher salt (enough for a raw egg to bounce to bottom and float back up) then add 1 cup of brown sugar and about a bottle of liquid smoke. Let sit in brine overnight and smoke in morning.

[Habanero Smoker]

It depend on which coarser salt. For example the two most common kosher salts, Diamond Crystal and Morton's, vary a great deal.  If the recipe specifies Diamond Crystal Kosher then you are using twice as much salt. If the recipe specifies Morton's Kosher you are using maybe 1/4 cup more salt, then what is called for.

[dtjim]

I dont think the recipe specified what kind of salt, using a different recipe this time and it just called for non iodized so i used mortons coarse kosher

1 qt water
1/3 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Non Iodized Salt
1 tlbs Garlic (heaping)
1 tlbs Pepper
2 tlbs Vegetable Oil
2 tlbs Vinegar
2 tlbs Soy Sauce

Marinate at least 6 hours

[dtjim]

hab i was going by what somebody reposted by one of your posts on this thread about the salt

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=6608.0

[Habanero Smoker]

I'm basically saying the same thing in the other post about the density of salt. I'm just adding that not all kosher salts are the same. Diamond Crystal kosher salt grain size are about twice as large as Morton kosher. As for the salt volume measurement, I believe a closer amount would be 1 cup pickling salt = 1 1/4 cups Morton's Kosher (or about 2 cups Diamond Crytal kosher).

The recipe you posted and the way that it is written generally refers to a salt that has a grain size of table salt, and pickling salt has that size of grain. If you make a gallon that would be 1 1/3 cups of pickling salt or close to 14 ounces. If you used Morton's Kosher that would be about 11 ounces. I generally will not go higher then 1 cup of pickling salt/gallon (10 ounces).

I went back to the beginning of this thread and see that you used 2 cups of Morton's table salt to one gallon of water. That is 20 ounces (1 1/4 pounds) of salt per gallon, plus a 1/2 cup of soy sauce. That is a lot more salt then the original recipe calls for, which is 14 ounce. As mentioned by Manxman, you will need to reduce you brine times, and I would bring the salt amount back to where the original recipe called for; and/or reduce the salt to one cup.