About a week ago, we decided to smoke some salmon. Went to our local grocery and bought two packages, each 2+ pounds.
One of them was marked 50% off because it had an expiration day of that day.
Got them home, opened them up and prepared for an overnight brining in a mild salt/brown sugar solution. The 50% piece seemed to have a bit of an off odor. Each package was put into a separate Tupperware containers for the overnight brine.
Next morning I took them out of and spread them out on a tray for airing. The salmon from the 50% package had a stronger odor, so I put them into the garage until wife got up. She has a more sensitive nose (my sense of smell is challenged). The 50% lot immediately went into a sealed baggie and into the garbage can. We went to the store and replaced with new fresh salmon.
The lesson is -- a 50% off deal on fish is not worth taking. We'd done that on beef before, and the meat was still fine. But three+ day old fish is NOT fine!
Anyhow, here are some pictures. We ended up with part of the salmon being brined overnight and part not being brined. Both tasted good.
The pork steaks you see in one of the pictures were dinner a night later. My first time for doing pork chops or steaks and they turned out good. They also had spent the night in a brine solution in the frig.
We used pecan chips in the smoker, and had the thermostat set at 250.
Here is the original layout -- bad fish was on the left.
And this picture shows a fan helping to dry out and get the pellicle established. Note that the bad fish has been replaced by two nice one pound hunks.
Into the MES, along with a pair of pork steaks, ready to go.
All done. Had one piece for dinner.
The rest is vacuum sealed and ready for the freezer. Did some dinner for two sized packages and some smaller 4 ounce packages that will find their way into a smoked salmon dip.
One of them was marked 50% off because it had an expiration day of that day.
Got them home, opened them up and prepared for an overnight brining in a mild salt/brown sugar solution. The 50% piece seemed to have a bit of an off odor. Each package was put into a separate Tupperware containers for the overnight brine.
Next morning I took them out of and spread them out on a tray for airing. The salmon from the 50% package had a stronger odor, so I put them into the garage until wife got up. She has a more sensitive nose (my sense of smell is challenged). The 50% lot immediately went into a sealed baggie and into the garbage can. We went to the store and replaced with new fresh salmon.
The lesson is -- a 50% off deal on fish is not worth taking. We'd done that on beef before, and the meat was still fine. But three+ day old fish is NOT fine!
Anyhow, here are some pictures. We ended up with part of the salmon being brined overnight and part not being brined. Both tasted good.
The pork steaks you see in one of the pictures were dinner a night later. My first time for doing pork chops or steaks and they turned out good. They also had spent the night in a brine solution in the frig.
We used pecan chips in the smoker, and had the thermostat set at 250.
Here is the original layout -- bad fish was on the left.
And this picture shows a fan helping to dry out and get the pellicle established. Note that the bad fish has been replaced by two nice one pound hunks.
Into the MES, along with a pair of pork steaks, ready to go.
All done. Had one piece for dinner.
The rest is vacuum sealed and ready for the freezer. Did some dinner for two sized packages and some smaller 4 ounce packages that will find their way into a smoked salmon dip.