mds51
Meat Mopper
Since I have taken a big interest in making Lox since i have joined the forum and have learned a lot I am going to give you my two cents as well. I Have done several batches of Lox and the results have all been very good. I do NOT do th salinating or brining step and still get quality and consistant results. I also use a lot of fresh lemon and orange zest and fresh dill and wrap two whole fillets up in plastic wrap and weigh them down for three days with turning them once during this time. The only mistake I made as you can see in the above threads is that I let the last batch sit in the fridge to form the pellical too long and had a litte too much form making a little skin on this batch. Dave came through with his usual good advice and I will cut the pellical time down considerablly. As far as the smoking it is done in a MES and i only cold smoke with the AMNPS using Alder wood dust. If it is warm outside I use an ice bottle in the drip tray to keep it well below 100 degrees. We only smoke for threee hours and let the fillets sit under the kitchen exhaust hood to cool and mellow for an hour before slicing and vacuum bagging. The texture is perfect and the taste is rich and buttery. THe citrus zest and dill are there and soem fresh zest and dill can be put in the vacuum bag fo added flavor. Thanks to the forum and Todd Johnson and his products this is one of the best things my brother and I smoke and I have not bought Lox at the store since we have started this process. Also the results have been great from Salmon that has the skin on or off and from different sources. Good Luck and the work to do it right is well worth it!!!
mds51
mds51