Cold Smoked (then smoked) Salmon Bites

[meatinc]

Inspiration for this recipe came from Steve and his post on SMF here.  Thanks Steve!

The big difference is I got to break in and use my A-MAZE-N 18" Smoker Tube.  If you don't have one of these yet, please go get one.  It is literally "amazing"!

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

Basic Dry Brine

• Brown Sugar - 4 cups
• Kosher Sea Salt - 1.5 cups
• Garlic Powder - 4 tblspn
• Onion Powder - 2 tblspn
• Cayenne Powder - 2 tblspn

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

I made sure the 1.5" cubes (or as close as I could get) were evenly coated.

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

After 6 hours in the fridge, the brine liquified and the salmon bites had sucked in the flavor.  I rinsed them off really, really well.  My deviation from the original recipe was giving the bites a quick bath in Teriyaki sauce before spreading them out to dry and form the pellicle.  I think it added another layer of flavor.

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

I lit the A-MAZE-N 18" Smoker tube per instructions.  I loaded it with Apple Pellets. 

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

This is the amount of smoke the A-MAZE-N tube put out.  My Traeger 075 is NOT on in this picture!  It kept the grate temp at an even 120F for over 4 hours.  The 18" tube is supposed to go for 8 hours or so and it probably would have but I was getting hungry!

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

I started up the Traeger 075 after the 4 hours and put it on the Smoke Setting and continued to smoke the salmon for another 2 hours or so @ 165F grate temp until the internal temp on the fish reached 145F.

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• meatinc
• Dec 5, 2012

They came out amazing.  Perfect balance of smoke, sweet, salt and a little heat from the cayenne.  We ate most of them up within a few minutes.  The left over bites went in to some Angel Hair and Alfredo the next day.

Thanks A-MAZE-N for this product!  A must have in any BBQ arsenal!

Disclaimer - I did receive the A-MAZE-N tube as a raffle prize at our SoCal Gathering. Thanks to my good friend Gary.  You will be missed.

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Great Looking Salmon!

I really like the performance of the 18" AMNTS!!!! I can't wait for my Bacon to be done brining so I can put it to the real cold smoking test!

 

[meatinc]

Thanks for the look. 

You are supposed to get 8 - 9 hours out of the 18".  I really torched my pellets to get it started and probably only got about 6 hours of smoke time.  I probably didn't have to torch them as much as I did and that could explain the lower amount of total smoke time I experienced.

If you had to refill it for more smoke time I guess you could.  Some gloves, shake it out, reload and relight.
 

 

[dirtsailor2003]

When we did the turkey for thanksgiving I used the AMNTS and the turkey was in the smoker 5 hours. When I pulled it off I just let the tube keep on going, It went out about 3 hours later. I am planning on two loads for the cold smoke of the bacon, shooting for 12-16 hours of cold smoke for the belly and the buckboard. Will depend on the color.

 

[crustyo44]

Those salmon bites look great. You certainly gave me ideas to make them when all the festivities are finished 

and everything is back to normal.

Thank you for posting the recipe.

Jan.

 

[therealfrosty]

great idea! thank you for sharing.

 

[tjohnson]

I dig the salmon bites!!

TJ

 

[azbohunter]

I have some frozen salmon I caught this last summer, I have to try this. I have a friend from Alaska that visits us in Arizona every winter and he always brings some salmon that he cold smoked in alder for 8 hours. He would pop it in an oven for about 10 minutes at 450* and those things were sooooo good. This looks very similar except that he smoked his in strips about an 1 1/2"  wide and 12" long and vacuum pack them with about 6 pieces per bag, then he would cut them into bite size pieces when he heated them. Out of this world good stuff.

Thanks for this post..I think it will be my next project!