Dry brine salmon

[dano126]

Hello all, I got some salmon from my son from his Michigan fishing trip. It's been froze, and of course, now, it's thawed. It looked a lot different than the store bought slabs that I've used, but still, it's salmon (From what I've been reading, its white Chinook or ivory Chinook). Anyway I dry brined it with salt and brown sugar for like three days. During that time, quite a bit of liquid had drawn out if it. I was wondering if I should have removed some of that liquid? Another thing, some of the pieces that I'm smoking are up to a1 1/4" thick. Is that considered a thick piece?
Thanks for any tips and advice.
Merry Christmas to all!

 

[forktender]

Three days is a long time in any type of brine for salmon it will likely be very salty.

 

[thirdeye]

Liquid is supposed to be drawn out of the flesh, and it should have mixed with your surface cure to make a syrup kind of solution. It would have looked like this in the wrap. You want to keep as much as possible, although sometimes the wrap will leak a little.


1-1/4 is thicker than the sides I buy, so your additional cure time probably helped there. I dry cure mine between 6 hours and 10 hours based on thickness.

 

[dernektambura]

mix cold water and chunks of ice... dip the salmon for up to 12 hrs to de-salinate.. change water every 3 hrs...

 

[dano126]

Liquid is supposed to be drawn out of the flesh, and it should have mixed with your surface cure to make a syrup kind of solution. It would have looked like this in the wrap. You want to keep as much as possible, although sometimes the wrap will leak a little.
View attachment 476819

1-1/4 is thicker than the sides I buy, so your additional cure time probably helped there. I dry cure mine between 6 hours and 10 hours based on thickness.

I put mine in tupperware type containers, and with in an hour, there was like a cup or more of moisture drawn out. And yes, it was a syrup consistency. By the end of the 3rd day, there was over two cups of "syrup". Although they turned out okay, I believe it got a little over done, as I was having a tough time keeping a constant temp. with the wind blowing around, and keeping my temp down to like 90 deg.

 

[doughboysigep]

did a simple water, soy, sugar, salt brine overnite, then took out of brine for 4 hours in fridge to get pedicle. smoked for 4 hours at 200 (had to bump it to 250 because they weren't getting to temp (still 120 after 3 hours - thought they would be done in 3 hours). final temp was 150 (I know, that is over) and they were perfectly fine. gobbled up one filet and have one waiting for gobbling up today. It was excellent!!

 

[thirdeye]

did a simple water, soy, sugar, salt brine overnite, then took out of brine for 4 hours in fridge to get pedicle. smoked for 4 hours at 200 (had to bump it to 250 because they weren't getting to temp (still 120 after 3 hours - thought they would be done in 3 hours). final temp was 150 (I know, that is over) and they were perfectly fine. gobbled up one filet and have one waiting for gobbling up today. It was excellent!!

Sometimes when the outside temp is cold I can't get my fish smoker over 160°, and after 3 hours I have enough smoke, so I move to my oven on convection at 180° for 20 minutes, then bump it to 200° and this way I can slowly bring the internal to 145° in the thickest part of each fillet. I generally cut the tail sections off raw, and cure them less time, and of course they are done earlier when smoking.

 

[cmayna]

For me, dry brining Salmon for more than 12 hours will end up with a dry product. I've always gone with, the thickness of the fish pieces dictates how long to brine. I always try to have all pieces to be around the same thickness. When I smoke Salmon filets, tails, etc, I dry brine for around 7-8 hours max. Small nugget pieces is brined for 3-4 hours.

Now, this is smoking wild Chinook Salmon. Maybe other Salmons can tolerate longer brine sessions.