# Hi Mountain Alaska Salmon Brine



## mneeley490 (Feb 19, 2022)

Trying this tonight for a smoke tomorrow. Instructions say to soak for 24 hours. Seems quite long to me. Anyone tried this? I'm thinking I'll pull it out after 4-6 hours.


----------



## bauchjw (Feb 19, 2022)

Never tried it! Can’t wait to see how it goes!


----------



## tallbm (Feb 19, 2022)

mneeley490 said:


> Trying this tonight for a smoke tomorrow. Instructions say to soak for 24 hours. Seems quite long to me. Anyone tried this? I'm thinking I'll pull it out after 4-6 hours.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Never tried it.  Give a little quarter sized piece a fry test and see how it tastes. 
I'm always skeptical of the store bought seasonings brine times.

I have had good luck using few of LEM's seasoning going around 2.8-3% weight of seasoning for dry brining. So if I had 100gms of meat that means I would use like 2.8-3gm of seasoning for my brine. With a liquid brine I would add the meat and water weight and do 2.8-3% of that weight as my seasoning.

This is a little more accurate and is scalable.  The trial and error part comes in to see if the seasoning is too strong or too weak at 2.8- 3% but I take notes and tweak until I get it right so I never have to guess again.

Feel free to take some notes and sort it out so you can always know how to treat this high mountain brine/cure seasoning :)


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 19, 2022)

Ended up going 6-1/2 hours in the brine; based on what others have done here, my limited experience with smoking salmon, and that the Hi Mountain BBB cure was _very _salty for my tastes.
I'm also doing a batch of Jeff's Smoked Salmon Candy, from his email a few days ago. That will go in my MES 40 tomorrow, and the regular smoke will be in my GMG. Both will be using apple pellets, and both are forming pellicles in the garage fridge overnight.


----------



## Winterrider (Feb 20, 2022)

BIL brought some salmon back from a Michigan trip many years ago and helped me do it up for him. We used that same brine, soaked for 16 hrs. and fridged overnight. We both thought it was very good. Coated with some extra brown sugar which  may have equalized the salt. Let fan blow on it for couple hrs before into smoker.


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 20, 2022)

Jeff's Salmon Candy. Still has 1.5 hours to go.






Hi Mountain salmon. IT is around 145°. I'm thinking about 45 minutes to an hour left on this.


----------



## thirdeye (Feb 20, 2022)

Hi Mountain products are made down the road from me, so their products are everywhere.  But I'm a dry brine guy so I have not used this brine, but I am looking forward to reading your review.  I think one of my friends goes10 hours, but that is on thick salmon. 

Sometimes, Hi Mountain seems to forget how valuable time and certain steps can be when making certain products. They like to hurry things along.   I definitely believe in an overnight rest  (12 to 15 hours) for the pellicle. And I think their recommended internal temp of 155° to 165° is too high.


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 20, 2022)

thirdeye said:


> Hi Mountain products are made down the road from me, so their products are everywhere.  But I'm a dry brine guy so I have not used this brine, but I am looking forward to reading your review.  I think one of my friends goes10 hours, but that is on thick salmon.
> 
> Sometimes, Hi Mountain seems to forget how valuable time and certain steps can be when making certain products. They like to hurry things along.   I definitely believe in an overnight rest  (12 to 15 hours) for the pellicle. And I think their recommended internal temp of 155° to 165° is too high.


Not to mention their temp. They want you to smoke at 200° from the get go. I've been gradually increasing the smoker temperature up to 180-ish.


----------



## cmayna (Feb 20, 2022)

Between the two batches shown above, the HI Mountain finish goods looks far less spicy as compared to the Jeff batch.  It is so easy to cover up the delicate taste of the meat.   I always pull my Salmon when the IT has reached 145.  No higher.


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 20, 2022)

Just pulled the Hi Mountain at 155° IT; I like it to be firm. The 2 on the left had fresh CBP added before going into the fridge last night (the rest of my family is not hot on black pepper. Weirdos.)  I'm waiting for it to cool off before I try it.


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 20, 2022)

thirdeye said:


> Hi Mountain products are made down the road from me, so their products are everywhere.
> 
> Sometimes, Hi Mountain seems to forget how valuable time and certain steps can be when making certain products. They like to hurry things along.   I definitely believe in an overnight rest  (12 to 15 hours) for the pellicle. And I think their recommended internal temp of 155° to 165° is too high.


Thirdeye, since you're so close, they should hire you to fine-tune their instructions. It would really help. I found the same "hurry up" directions on their BBB cure. I ended up using Bearcarver's BBB smoking guide, as usual.


----------



## thirdeye (Feb 20, 2022)

mneeley490 said:


> I'm waiting for it to cool off before I try it.


I see from your photos that the albumen didn't rise, this is a sign of good smoker temperature control. A good test will be comparing your sampling today, verses tomorrow after it chills fully.  I prefer it on day 2 or day 3. 


mneeley490 said:


> *Thirdeye, since you're so close, they should hire you to fine-tune their instructions. It would really help.* I found the same "hurry up" directions on their BBB cure. I ended up using Bearcarver's BBB smoking guide, as usual.


Hehehee,  about 12 or 14 years ago the Buckboard Bacon craze was sweeping a few of the forums I frequent.  I did things differently enough with that products instructions that I wrote an article for my cookin' site and it was getting a hundred hits a day. I experimented with tenderloins, loins, and even thick pork chops. So one day I called Hi Mountain and talked to one of the product specialists and explained how versatile their cure is beyond using it on butts, and mentioned about the overnight rest, how brining before Buckboarding loins or chops helps, we also talked about cold smoking.  We talked for over an hour, and as far as I know the instructions never changed.


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 20, 2022)

thirdeye said:


> I see from your photos that the albumen didn't rise, this is a sign of good smoker temperature control. A good test will be comparing your sampling today, verses tomorrow after it chills fully.  I prefer it on day 2 or day 3.


I just tried it, and I hope the flavor improves. All I can taste is salt, no "maple sugar" to balance it out. Gak! Turns out 6.5 hours was too long in the brine, salt-wise. I shudder to think what 24 hours would have brought. If it doesn't settle down, it may have to go into a cream cheese spread.

I'm bringing the salmon candy to a dinner tonight. I'm sure it will go down better.


----------



## TNJAKE (Feb 20, 2022)

Saltiness aside it looks delicious. Hope the candy is a hit. Salmon dip is a good idea for the salty batch. Leave it chunky and throw in plenty of dill


----------



## thirdeye (Feb 20, 2022)

mneeley490 said:


> I just tried it, and I hope the flavor improves. *All I can taste is salt,* no "maple sugar" to balance it out.


Did you happen to take your sample from the belly, where it's more fatty, but very thin?  That will always taste different than meat from the body of the fillet. Anyways, tomorrow will be the real test.

Here is how I break down a side:  tails, main body, and belly strips (which are a cooks snack, and awesome for breakfast).  I cure the belly strips a shorter time, next are the tails. The body pieces cure the longest.   For wet curing you could always pull the thinner pieces from the bucket earlier than the thicker body pieces.








mneeley490 said:


> I'm bringing the salmon candy to a dinner tonight. I'm sure it will go down better.


Well at least the candied recipe is a different one, with proven results.  A friend's wife and daughter like candied salmon so I sometimes make a surprise batch for them in strips.


----------



## mneeley490 (Feb 20, 2022)

thirdeye said:


> Did you happen to take your sample from the belly, where it's more fatty, but very thin?  That will always taste different than meat from the body of the fillet. Anyways, tomorrow will be the real test.


No, it was a thicker piece. My wife tried it, and thought it was pretty salty, too. Anyway, 1 chunk went into a spread which I'm also taking tonight, and the rest are in the fridge.

I bought a couple Hi Mountain breakfast sausage cures when they were on sale. Now that I've been burned twice, I'm afraid to try them.


----------



## Winterrider (Feb 20, 2022)

It does look very good. Hope the salt mellows a bit for you.


----------



## tallbm (Feb 21, 2022)

mneeley490 said:


> No, it was a thicker piece. My wife tried it, and thought it was pretty salty, too. Anyway, 1 chunk went into a spread which I'm also taking tonight, and the rest are in the fridge.
> 
> I bought a couple Hi Mountain breakfast sausage cures when they were on sale. Now that I've been burned twice, I'm afraid to try them.


It sucks about the saltiness.  Fry testing will save you :D

In general I have found that if you take the weight of the water + weight of the meat to get your Total Weight.  
Then you multiply Total Weight by 0.028 (which is 2.8%) you will get a ball park weight for the amount of Hi Mountain or any other store bought seasoning/cure to use.

When you do this you should be very close to a salt level that will not get too salty even if you brine for a week straight.  
You may have to lower or raise the % a little to nail it but it should get you close.
Again the fry test will save you and let you know if you need to increase/decrease the %.

Without using this practice and tweaking, it is likely that no store bought seasoning or cure will ever get the job done well :)


----------

