Some Q's on hot smoking salmon using Kummok's recipe

[crowdcor225]

So it's my first attempt at smoking salmon and I've chosen to use Kummok's recipe. I brined my salmon pieces for 12 hours, but when I was letting them sit to form the pellicle, they smelled very strongly of the brine, and I am wondering if that will end up giving them a stronger flavor in the end product? My next question is about avoiding the boogers that come from the temp rising too quickly. I pre-heated the smoker to 120 degrees F before putting in the salmon and am wondering if I should have put them in before starting up the smoker? Anyways, hopefully my salmon will turn out okay. It's a learning process to be sure, but I don't want to waste the wild sockeye salmon that I am smoking.

[pmmpete]

Kummok's brine recipe has a moderate aroma because it includes soy or teriyaki sauce.  If you like the flavor of the fish after it has been smoked, next time you make smoked fish you could try basting the fish with some additional brine before forming a pellicle, to increase the flavor from the brine.  If you find the flavor from the brine is stronger than you like, try a different brine recipe, or try rinsing or wiping the brine off the outside of the fish before you form a pellicle.

Boogers on smoked fish are an aesthetic issue, not a taste issue.  If they appear, wipe them off and keep smoking.  Whether you get boogers depends partly on how oily or fatty the fish is, and partly on how hot you get the fish in the first hour or so you smoke it.  If you get boogers on your current batch of smoked salmon, next time try putting the fish in the smoker before you turn on the heat, or preheat the smoker to a lower temperature, or increase the temperature more slowly.

With Kummok's recipe and instructions, you can hope to get very good smoked fish with your first try.  But there is a certain amount of trial and error involved in smoking fish.  Keep notes on what you do each time, and if your fish turns out too salty, too dry, too boogery, or whatever, do it a little differently the next time.

[tsquared]

Don't worry about the brine-- it will be fine. The only substantial difference I do when using kummoks recipe is I don't take the heat past about 150 but leave it in for a bit longer until my strips look and feel right.
T2

[devo]

Don't worry about the brine-- it will be fine. The only substantial difference I do when using kummoks recipe is I don't take the heat past about 150 but leave it in for a bit longer until my strips look and feel right.
T2

Ya what he said

[aces-n-eights]

My experience has shown that letting the fish air dry and form a good pellicle will dramatically reduce "boogerage".

[MrRaven]

I have a fan going towards the fish to keep the air circulating and that helps to form a good pellicle and I usually get little to no boogers. But like pmmpete said, boogers don't alter taste - just how it looks

[Gizmo]

wondering if I should have put them in before starting up the smoker?

One caution I would like to add here is a note on the position of the salmon in the smoker in relation to the heating element.  The heating element is in the bottom against the back wall so salmon close to the element will have the booger issue more so than than those up high. 

To address the question in quotes more specifically, the heating element is full on or full off when heating or not heating.  Therefore, just remember (in addition to my previous note) that while the box is getting up to the preset temperature, the heating element will be full on until the set temp is reached.  This may expose the salmon to those higher temperature that cause the boogers especially if the salmon is on the lower racks.

[tsquared]

Follow up to gizmos good advice--remember to rotate your racks as well as turning them back to front otherwise the strips in the back corners will be toasted.
T2

[pmmpete]

You can reduce the unevenness of temperature and smoke in your smoker by adding a fan.  But if you pack the fish too tightly on the racks, you'll still need to rotate the racks top to bottom and horizontally.