Kummok Salmon

[meyer lemon]

Smoking fresh Chinook (silver) salmon this week in TN.  The ambient temp will be near 90.  To keep the temp down to the recommended 100-120 deg. for the 1st hr.  should I use puck burner and ice?  or set up cold smoke adapter?  What about the next two temps of 140 and 175?  A little confused...case of TMI.

[WoodlawnSmoker]

Sounds delicious, make sure you take plenty of pictures.  I'm thinking you should be fine without the cold smoking attachment.  For the first temp, try just the puck burner without any heat in the oven, it shouldn't get that hot, you can use icewater in the bowl if it does.  For the next bumps in temperature you'll have to turn on the oven, just go slow and monitor.

You'll be fine, dive in and have fun, this is a fabulous hobby.

[rajzer]

If you have a cold smoke attachment, then use it.  From my experience, if you are using the puck burner on hot day the smoker temp easily reaches 130.  The reason that the recipe starts off at a lower smoking temp, is to dry and seal off the salmon so that you have less or no protein oozing out and producing those white an unattractive globules.  You will not have mastered the art of salmon smoking until you produce nice clean fillets without that white snot! Also make sure sure that the salmon is completely dry before smoking.  At 80 the salmon is already cooking.

[meyer lemon]

Since the projected ambient temps are going up, I think cold smoke is the only way to keep things going slow and low.
Thank you all for your responses...I love this forum and only hope I can help folks one day.

[Habanero Smoker]

If possible smoke/cook the salmon during the coolest part of the day, which could be early morning or late night. If you have to do it during daylight hours make sure your smoker will be in the shade during the entire cook.