To salty ?

[george]

Last weekend I smoked some Trout and some Salmon, I used a basic brine and Hickory wood and they were way to salty. Yesterday I smoked some Sockeye Salmon and I cut the salt in the brine in half and it was still salty. Now I do like my salt but this was too much. I am wondering if it is the Hickory that is giving it that salty taste? When I buy smoked fish at a smokehouse it is not near as salty as mine. Anyone have a idea?

 

[mballi3011]

The first question is did you soak the fish in water before you smoked them. Then I'm not sure if you should but like bacon do the fry test just cut off a chunk and fry it up in a pan by itself and taste if there is still to much salt flavor or not. If there is change the water and soak it some more till it's not salting for your liking. so try that and see if that doesn't cure your problem.

 

[beer-b-q]

This article "Smoking Fish At Home - Safely" might help you...http://extension.oregonstate.edu/cat...pnw/pnw238.pdf

 

[george]

The fish was soaked in a water based brine then let dry for about a hour.

 

[pitrow]

What was the concentration of salt and water, and how long did you soak it?

 

[backcountry]

I switched over to a soy sauce based brine and never looked back! You can back off a bit on the salt with this method (maybe you make up for it in the soy...). The length of your brine process also effects the saltiness of your finished product. Try cutting back on how long you brine your fish if you're finding it too salty.

Here's my base brine:

3 cups water
1 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper

You can tinker with adding other spices as well to infuse other flavors. My favorite is a bit of powdered ginger.

 

[meatball]

Wow...awesome link Beer-B-Q!!! Thanks.