This is going to be my first time smoking salmon.
I will be using fresh fish.
I want to get a salmon that is halfway between marinated and smoked salmon.
With a texture like this
What you have here looks to be Salmon Lox.
Not getting into the history and the various possibilities on different approaches and styles, a good general safe practice is to make the cured cold smoked version using Cure#1.
Once it is cured using salt, sugar, and cure #1 then it will be safe to cold smoke with the cure #1 and salt keeping the nasty bacteria from interfering.
Like all smoked meats, there is a process to do this properly, accurately, and it's own quirks to navigate to get it done correctly.
The first step is knowing that what you want looks to be Salmon Lox and then going through the research/steps to make it.
You are in like. I make Salmon Lox and many here also make it. Now our approaches may vary a little but the foundation here seems to be the same which is to cure with cure #1 and then cold smoke.
As you read about how to make this you may also see where people do a "soak" to remove excess salt. I have worked my process to the point where I get the salt content dialed in perfectly from the start and never have to do a soaking step to remove salt. The soaking step is strictly to fix having too much salt in the meat.
Anyhow, there's more to it so feel free to ask and I'm sure everyone can get you on the right track! :D
