Hot-Smoked Salmon
- 4 pieces Salmon Fillet
- 6 cups, 5 tablespoons, 1 teaspoon, 5- 1/4 pinches Water
- 7 ounces, weight Table Salt
- 7 ounces, weight Brown Sugar
- 1 whole Potato
- The night before, pop some small chunks of wood in water to soak.
- Then make your brine this breaks down proteins in the salmon.
- Take the water, and add about half the salt, stir until dissolved.
- Keep adding salt in 25g increments and stirring until dissolved until the potato (I bet you were wondering where that came into it) floats in the solution.
- Make sure to keep track of how much salt you used because you will then add the same amount of sugar.
- The amounts given above are guidelines.
- Pop your salmon in the brine, then go to bed!
- The next day, 2 tasks at once:
- 1.
- Take the salmon out of the brine, sit it in front of a fan to dry.
- 2.
- Light your BBQ coals (you want enough coals to cover half of your coal space, leaving the other half without coals).
- When theyre glowing, pop your soaked wood atop the hot coals, and put a couple of open heat-proof containers of water in the other (empty) half of your coal space.
- Put in an oven thermometer.
- Pop the lid on, open the vents and leave it until the temperature reads over 150F.
- If it gets too hot, i.e.
- above 250F, close up the vents.
- 3.
- Once it hits 150F pop the (almost certainly dry by now) salmon on the grill.
- You want the salmon to be over the water baths (not over the coals).
- Put the BBQ lid on, with the lid vent open.
- You want the lid vent to be over the salmon, not over the coals, so the smoke is drawn over the salmon as it escapes through the lid vent.
- Keep an eye on the temperature, the cooler the better, down to 150F.
- Over 250F theres a risk the salmon may dry out, but if you want it to go a bit quicker you can have the temperature higher.
- Like so many things, though, slower is better!
- If it starts getting too cold, open up the vents a bit, too hot close them a bit.
- Once the temperature is pretty stable, go have a lemonade!
- Or a coffee, or a margarita.
- Whatever floats your boat!
- Check it every 45 minutes.
- Once the salmon looks like the picture, its done!
- With experimentation, you can get this exactly how you like it.
- This is great served on some toasted bread, blinis, in salad, with pasta... You name it!
salmon fillet, salt, weight brown sugar, potato
Taken from tastykitchen.com/recipes/appetizers-and-snacks/hot-smoked-salmon/ (may not work)