Smoked Cod?

[mr t 59874]

Whew, Now that is good news Jason,  You definitely had me concerned and wondering as you were obviously experienced with canning fish. 

Short story:

When taking my Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) class for food manufacturing.  The professor teaching the class would say "Learn to deal with the fact's not tradition or sympathy".  I have a neighbor that fits this quote to the T. He cans his fish using the water bath method and insist that it is safe because that is the way his father did it.  He gives the canned fish to his friends who intern eat it because they don't want to hurt his feelings.

Keep up the good work and enjoy your mother lode of canned salmon.

Care to share your recipe and smoking details?

Tom 

 

[daveomak]

Jason, morning....  We've all had "lapse of genius"....  For me it can be a daily occurrence...  Like walk into the kitchen and forget why I'm there ??   Hey, we are all human...      

Dave

 

[mike w]

There are several that I use. Here is a simple brine solution:

1 gallon water

½ cup sea salt (non-iodized)

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup honey

1 tbsp tarragon

1 tsp garlic powder

Combine all ingredients in a non-metallic container, dissolve well. Place fish in the brine for 5-8 hours. Remove fish rinse, place on racks in fridge to dry and form pellicle.

You can add other spices to suit your taste.

Here is a dry brine that I use:

2 cups brown sugar

1/3 cup salt

1 tbsp onion salt

1 tbsp garlic salt

1 tbsp celery salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp white pepper

1 tbsp dried hot mustard

1 tbsp dried lemon peel

1 tbsp dill weed

Rub the fillets completely with the mixture. If doing large batches place rub on bottom of non-metallic container then place in one layer of fillets, cover fillets with more rub, place next layer of fillets on top, repeat. Brine for 12-24 hours. Remove from brine and rinse, place on racks in fridge to dry and form pellicle.

Once again you can adjust the spices, but keep the salt to sugar ratio. Normally I use a 4:1 sugar to salt ratio for salmon, but for fish like cod I use less salt. Once again there is not enough fat to absorb the flavor. Since your cod fillets will not have skin on them,you will want to spray the smoking racks with non-stick spray.

Thanks for the brine recipe, I just pulled two lbs of cod off the smoker!

 

[dlemon]

I tried the brine recipe and it worked perfectly. I only let it sit in the brine for three hours and then smoked on Apple wood. It was incrediably good. My daughter alos recommended the recipe and that is a stamp of approval!