Thanks for your detailed explaination of smoking salmon. This is gonna be great!
Thank You!!
Glad you like it !
Bear
Thanks for your detailed explaination of smoking salmon. This is gonna be great!
Sonny,
Looks great! I'm dying to try another Salmon filet recipe and Bear's recipe sure looks like it's the way to go.
I have followed Bear's steps, substituting my own marinade, and have had great results.
One thing in a recent post intrigues me: sous vide. I never thought of combing that with smoking the salmon. It seems to me you could get the salmon to a temp that absolutely makes it safe, without the one month freezing step, and then transfer to the smoker and keep smoking for hours and hours to get it as smoky as you want.
Bear is now a sous vide expert, so perhaps he has some thoughts on this.
I have followed Bear's steps, substituting my own marinade, and have had great results.
One thing in a recent post intrigues me: sous vide. I never thought of combing that with smoking the salmon. It seems to me you could get the salmon to a temp that absolutely makes it safe, without the one month freezing step, and then transfer to the smoker and keep smoking for hours and hours to get it as smoky as you want.
Bear is now a sous vide expert, so perhaps he has some thoughts on this.
I've done a little Salmon in my Sous Vide to get it all to a safe Temp.
However that has nothing to do with Freezing for proper times & Temps to eliminate Parasites.
It's either cooking to 160° or freezing that eliminates Parasites.
Bear
Thinking of doing two small batches of Salmon and Rock Cod using same brine in two different containers. Then let them smoke together.........as buddies do.
I am not only an engineer, but I spent the early part of my career working at one of Hewlett-Packard's test & measurement divisions. I learned a lot about various things related to measurements which includes not only accuracy, but precision, resolution, and sensitivity.I did get 161°. But don't trust my thermometer.
I don't trust any thermometer until I've proofed it.
Electrical engineers write tolerance specifications, like accuracy to +/- 2% or such.
So I apply that to other things, like a thermometer.
And mine are far too cheap to be expected to be accurate. So I use them as a rule of thumb.
If it burns my thumb, well, it's pretty danged hot! LOL! :eek:
Thinking of doing two small batches of Salmon and Rock Cod using same brine in two different containers. Then let them smoke together.........as buddies do.
So the Salmon & Cod will be hanging around, Smoking & Joking??
Bear
I am not only an engineer, but I spent the early part of my career working at one of Hewlett-Packard's test & measurement divisions. I learned a lot about various things related to measurements which includes not only accuracy, but precision, resolution, and sensitivity.
You are correct that any measuring instrument, in order to be accurate, has to be calibrated against a standard. Without getting "windy" and giving you a five page discourse on accuracy, the main thing you need to do, when figuring out whether you can trust your thermometer, is to do the ice water/boiling water tests. This is pretty simple, but there are actually a few things you need to know in order to do it right. I describe those things here:
Thermometer Calibration
But what about all the temperatures in between 32 and 212? Well, the neat thing about modern thermometers is they use solid state technology that is pretty much guaranteed to be linear. What does that mean? It means that if the two endpoints (the freezing and boiling temperatures) are set correctly, the physics of how the sensor works will pretty much guarantee that the in between temps will be very, very close to accurate, certainly plenty good enough for the rather simple requirements of BBQ. Even for something like sous vide, which requires extremely accurate temperature measurements and control, it will be good enough.
Finally, I am a big fan of the Thermapen. Yes, it is expensive, but for that price, you get a unit that is individually calibrated at the factory, traceable to NBS, meaning that you can trace the calibration back to the National Bureau of Standards and be assured that you are really measuring the temperature you think you are measuring.
Having said all that, as many people have said, for most BBQ things, while the thermometer is useful, the real test is feeling and prodding the food itself, in order to determine doneness.
Cod is another of my favorite fish. Never smoked any before, but I like it's flavor.
I need to look in the search function for smoked Cod. :rolleyes:
Hi Bear, tried your salmon brine today.
Brined a nice 1-1/4 lb salmon for 6 hrs.
Didn't smoke my fish this time, just grilled and my wife and I really enjoyed it and will use it again.
Thanks
SonnyE,
Not knowing which cod you normally consume, I can say that Ling Cod is much oilier than Rock Cod. So when you smoke it, plan to spend more time smoking ling vs Rock. I bring a lot of smoked cod, cream cheese and crackers, on our cod fishing trips. Everyone woof's it down.
But back to this thread's original subject, I'm looking forward in trying Bear's recipe for it will be something different than what I've been doing for so long. Maybe I won't fall asleep while torching up the pellets, etc.
I have no idea other than it is Plastic Cod, Atlantic I think. Been a long time since I bought any.
I'm not much of connoisseur. I like sea food, I see food, I eat it.
But I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut Bear's recipe would work great for a lot, if not all fish.