I got volunteered to smoke salmon for my aunt and uncle even though I had never done it. My mom went out and bought a whole fresh wild king salmon and dropped it off, so now I've got a beautiful, very expensive and giant fish (they filleted it at the market, I just had to pull the pin bones) and I'm not sure what to do, so I took to the googles....
I came up with a combination from different recipes that made sense to me and I want to share it with for other people who are trying to figure out what to do with salmon because it turned out amazing.
Brine (12 hours):
1 3/4 cups Morton's Kosher salt
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
Remove from brine, rinse thoroughly, pat dry, and rub. I used a light dusting of store-bought because this is my first try, Tom Douglas's Rub with Love for salmon.
Let sit out at room temperature with a fan on it for about 2 hours. You are looking for it to dry out and form what is called a pellicle. Basically the surface of the meat starts to look a little darker and drier.
Then I fired up my Smoke Vault to 225 with a bunch of hickory in it. (most people seem to prefer alder, but hickory is what I had and I have been smoking everything with hickory because I love it). Since I can't really go lower temp with this rig, I wanted to make sure that I got a good smoke on it, so after the smoke started dying down, threw another handful on and that carried it through to the end.
I'm not sure exactly how long it took, maybe 2 hours but seemed like a little less, the probe in the thickest part hit 140 and I pulled it.
I wish I had Qview for you but I promise it looked fantastic. I'm sharing this because it is by far my most successful meal out of the smoker. I've had some good ones, but people went nuts over this. My uncle said it was the best salmon he's ever had and wrapped some up to take it back to Michigan with him.
I came up with a combination from different recipes that made sense to me and I want to share it with for other people who are trying to figure out what to do with salmon because it turned out amazing.
Brine (12 hours):
1 3/4 cups Morton's Kosher salt
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
Remove from brine, rinse thoroughly, pat dry, and rub. I used a light dusting of store-bought because this is my first try, Tom Douglas's Rub with Love for salmon.
Let sit out at room temperature with a fan on it for about 2 hours. You are looking for it to dry out and form what is called a pellicle. Basically the surface of the meat starts to look a little darker and drier.
Then I fired up my Smoke Vault to 225 with a bunch of hickory in it. (most people seem to prefer alder, but hickory is what I had and I have been smoking everything with hickory because I love it). Since I can't really go lower temp with this rig, I wanted to make sure that I got a good smoke on it, so after the smoke started dying down, threw another handful on and that carried it through to the end.
I'm not sure exactly how long it took, maybe 2 hours but seemed like a little less, the probe in the thickest part hit 140 and I pulled it.
I wish I had Qview for you but I promise it looked fantastic. I'm sharing this because it is by far my most successful meal out of the smoker. I've had some good ones, but people went nuts over this. My uncle said it was the best salmon he's ever had and wrapped some up to take it back to Michigan with him.
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