How to make hot smoked salmon
A simple, easy and delicious smoked salmon recipe
Equipment
- smoker (kamado Joe, big green egg, Traeger, are any charcoal smoker)
Ingredients
- Salmon
- Kosher Salt (no added agents such as anti-cracking)
- Brown Sugar
- Charcoal and damp wood chips (hickory, pecan, mesquite, oak, apple, maple, alder)
- Optional: Spice or herb rub. Maple syrup, spicy pepper hot sauce (for basting while cooking)
Instructions
- Forethought: Use as much fish as you would like, I use nearly 4 lbs because it is a long process and I like to get as much out of my time as I can. Keep skin intact on the fish.
- Making the brine: Add the brown sugar, kosher salt and water to a pot and boil until everything is completely dissolved. Allow to cool completely. Add the fish and place in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
- Prepare your smoker to 200-225°F with charcoal and dampened wood chips.
- Remove the fish, rinse and pat dry. Add the your smoker skin side down.
- Optional: baste the top of the fish throughout the cooking process with maple syrup or spicy pepper sauce or a mixture of both.
- Remove when the internal temperature has reached approximately 140°F. If you don’t have an internal temperature reading you can alway break open the center of one fillet to check it around 3 hours and sample it to tell if it is done.
Notes
*In this cook I made salmon jerky, which you will see photographed. The only differences for jerky were cutting into thin slices and removing them from the smoker when they reached my desired jerky doneness.
-I use charcoal because it allows for cooking at lower temperatures which means the fish can smoke for longer and soak up more smoky flavor. This also ensures not over-cooking the fish. Wood burns hotter and faster, needs to be fueled constantly and because of these facts the temperatures fluctuates. Whereas charcoal goes slow and long for a long time, this keeps a consistent temperature.
-Soak or dampen wood chips and add them for unique flavor and more fresh wood smoke flavor.
-Leave the skin on because this helps keep the fish intact and moist. The skin will get crispy and the meat will easily depart from the skin for eating.
-Skin side down will allow for crispy skin and a soft, moist, flaky top. Presentation side down(meat side) will create a crispy top. Notice in my photos that I did both ways to get a different outcome and experience. The ones that were presentation side down were basted with maple syrup then placed downward to create a caramelized crispy top.
-This recipe uses a wet brine: salt and brown sugar dissolved in water. While you can also use a dry rub instead which you would just mix the salt and sugar and dry rub it directly on to the fish. Either one you pick don’t forget to rinse the fish off and then pat dry it before cooking.