Hi everyone, I'm not sure how many Adlandpro friends have the luxury of getting their hands on fresh salmon, but if you can, here is a way to make great smoked salmon. Build your smoke house first. I much prefer to build one, rather than buying those small, ready-made smokers. You want to build your smoke house about five to six feet high and three to four feet square. Plywood or strand board works fine as long as it isn't treated wood. Slope the top, leaving the sides square, so there's a gap at the top for the smoke to escape. You only need a few inches of gap. Attach slats to the sides of the smoke house up near the top, one on each side. They should be at least an inch thick. Cut skewers out of straight grained cedar that will reach across the smoke house and sit on the slats. Don't make them too thin - they will be used to hang your fillets when you are smoking your salmon. Make a simple, drop-in door by nailing two slats virtically on each side of the opening so that you can drop in a piece of plywood. Get an old electric frying pan that still works and creates enough heat to make wood smoulder. Make sure it has a lid with vents in it. Get a good supply of alder and maple wood. You can buy chips ready for use in a smoker, or you can just make your own. I have found that small chunks of alder and maple work just fine. You can use any kind of salmon, but my favourite for smoking is sockeye. Dog salmon (chum) and pink salmon are also good, but do not come out quite as firm. Fillet the salmon as soon as possible after it has been caught. Place a layer of salmon, skin side down, in a large container (you want to be able to get nice wide layers - a plastic baby bathtub works great.) Sprinkle a good layer of pickling (coarse) salt over the layer, then sprinkle brown sugar over the salt. Don't be shy with the sugar - cover the salt with it. Continue placing another layer of salmon fillets, skin side down, salt, and sugar, then another layer of salmon, etc., until you've filled the tub (or used all your salmon!) Place a cover over the tub and let it sit in a cool area for 24 hours. After 24 hours, the salt and sugar combined with the moisture from the salmon will have created a nice, slimey brine. (If you leave it longer than 24 hours, it will be too salty. Note that there's no need to wash the fillets - the way they are smoked, any excess will drip off in the smoke house.) Take the fillets out and push your cedar skewers through the large end of your fillets. Don't put more on a skewer than it will support! Hang each skewer on the slats in your smoke house. You should be able to fit all the fillets with plenty of room on several skewers. Leave plenty of space between the fillets and the sides of the smoke house. Put the frying pan in the bottom of the smokehouse, plug it in, set it on its highest setting, and put some of your wood in the pan. When it starts to smoke, put the lid on and close the door of the smoke house. From time to time, you will need to add more wood. When you see very little smoke coming out of the smoke house, it's time to add more wood. Tip: If your electric pan doesn't seem to be hot enough, ignite the chips with a propane torch, then immediately put the lid on and close the door. The chips will continue to smoke until they're used up. I like to keep the smoke going for two days. This produces a very nice, well-flavoured, moist to semi-dry result that you'll have a hard time keeping your friends away from! (Note that the moister the fillet to start with, the moister the final result. Female fish produce a drier finished product.) God bless, Dave

Hi David,

One look at the title of your forum and I forgot all the important things I had to do and clicked!.  I love smoked salmon!  I used to buy it "home smoked" in England, and when I was in Sweden saw lots of these smoke houses at village fairs - they seem to smoke everything there.

Have you got a picture of the inside of the smoke house that you can send me?  I cannot visualize it at all.


Saludos from Spain
Jenny

Hi Dave,

          I love smoked salmon!!!! This sounds really good.

Your Good Friend

Deborah

Dave,

Thanks for the invitation!

It reminds me of when we used to smoke salmon, and we would also take it and salt it down in a wooden keg.

A layer of salt, then a layer of salmon another layer of salt and keep repeating that untill the keg is full.

During the winter, when you want fresh salmon, take some out of the keg, wash the salt off and cook it however you like.

You want some good eating, take some of the smoked salmon, cake doughnuts, extra sharp cheader cheese, some fresh butermilk and have a feast!

 

Hi Dave.

Funny you should start a forum about this subject, after smoking some 50lbs of Salmon over the last weekend I was thinking about posting the same subject....

One thing I must admit that I like about our move here to Southern Oregon, is the abundance of Salmon fishing I can now enjoy & as James can vouch (as he used to live in the same coastal town we now live in) there sure is a lot of salmon & salmon fisher people here.

I fished for Salmon most of the end of last week, catching King salmon (Chinooks) up to 34lb. Now eating fresh caught salmon is a most wonderful culinary experience, but as we ended up with over 60lbs of edible salmon after cleaning the ones I caught, even Pam & I cannot eat that much.

So with instructions from some of the locals, we prepared the salmon the 'Oregon' way.

First we mixed (very thourghly)  1lb of brown sugar, with 1 cup Moretons 'cure' salt & two or three tsps of Garlic Powder (optional, if you like garlic), more if you like a strong garlicky flavor. (this gives you enough mix for approx 30lbs of fish)

This is then rubbed in to all parts of the salmon, which is then placed in a container, ziplock bag, etc, for a minimum of 12 hours, turning occasionally.

After the minimum time of 'brineing',  wash thourghly all the salmon fillets, chunks (whatever way you like to have your salmon) in cold water until all the brine mix is off & then air dry for 3 hours or until the 'pectin' has formed a glaze on the salmon.

We then smoke in a shop bought smoker (different strokes for different folks Dave), laying on the racks provided leaving ample space between each piece of salmon for the smoke to permeate...

We use a mixture of Apple, Cherry & a small quantity of Alder for our 'smoke'

We put in the 'smoke' pan filled with this mixture every two to three hours, for a minimum of 12 hours, depending on the thickness of the salmon fillets, the thicker they are, the longer they have to be smoked.....

Half way through, we take of the skin & remove the lateral line bones & the grey meat thats there as this tends to make the salmon sour, turn the fillets on to their other side & replace in smoker. Two hours before finishing smoking we glaze the salmon with fresh honey, or store bought if we forgot to get some from the bee keeper....

We then do the hardest part, we let themn air dry again for 24/36 hours before we taste them, I say this is the hardest part as it's extremly hard to leave them that long..

As Dave states, their is nothing to beat the taste of fresh caught salmon after smoking, the stuff we were given or bought before we moved here pale's in comparison..

One last note, the first lot of salmon we smoked, we 'over smoked' It turned into Salmon Jerky, still very nice but not what we were trying to achieve....

Anthony.

Your Security Friend in Oregon