king salmon?

[pensrock]

Ok, I'll admit it, I know nothing about salmon. So i'm hoping our friends up north can help out.
A friend gave me some king salmon to smoke and I'm trying kummoks recipie this weekend. But just out of curiosity, what are all these different types of salmon? Are they all good to smoke? There seems to be so many, Coho, King, Silver, Alaskan, Pacific someone even mentioned Dog salmon? Is one better than the others for eating/smoking?  What's your preferance if given a choice? I have never had the chance to fish for salmon but hoping that will change this year. Thanks for any information you may have.

[Ontrack]

pensrock-I have smoked King, Silver, Alaskan, and Pacific, although not all on the Bradley. I would say I rank them as favorites in that order. However, if they were done on the Bradley, the order may be different or even reversed. I'm sure the "northerners" will have a different opinion than mine, because I come from southwest Virginia, where fresh salmon swims down the interstate in a refrigerated truck... ::)

[tsquared]

Pensrock the 2 best species of salmon for smoking are kings (called springs here in Canada) and sockeye salmon. There is much debate about which is the ultimate but trust me, either one will make you lick your lips. They both have a high fat content which makes it taste great. The good news is your doctor won't mind this fat as it is the kind that is healthy for you! Kings are the largest species of salmon(up to 80 lbs) lots of fun to catch when you hook that 45 lber! Sockeye are relatively small --biggest would be 10 lbs or so. The  next best for smoking are silvers (called coho here in Canada). They have a good fat content and tail walk across the water when you catch 'em! The final 2 species of salmon are pink salmon and chum salmon (chum are also called dog salmon because there teeth grow to a large size as they start heading towards their natal river.) Pinks are very numerous and thus cheap to buy but you will not get the same quality of product with your smoked strips if you use pink salmon. They do smoke nicely but I would do larger chunks if you are going to use pinks. Chum-dog salmon have the lowest fat content of all. The natives used to value chums for that reason. They knew that it is fat that causes fish--even smoked fish--to eventually go rancid. They saved smoked chum as their iron rations--food to be eaten in the last few months of winter when all other species of fish had been consumed. I used to hard smoke it to a real dried chewy state and quite enjoyed it but I haven't done so for years.
T2

[pensrock]

Thanks for the information! I figured some of the names had to be for the same type of salmon. I'm looking forward to smoking this king salmon.

[Kummok]

Ditto what T2 said....you are indeed blessed to be able to start at the TOP of the food chain with King (Springs in BC/Yukon-speak  ;) ). Nothing better in my book. If I was stranded on the proverbial desert island with only one choice of food, it'd be feeder King....white for grilling and red for smoking.

There's more detail on ranking and explaining differences in previous 'Fish' threads so I won't repeat it herein. Just know that you are starting with the BEST, IMHO!!