Smoking Salmon-Brining recipe

Items needed for Smoking Salmon:

• Salmon fillets - however many you have, or however many will fit in your smoker at one time
• Dark brown sugar - the amount depends upon how much fish you have.
• Non-iodized salt (canning salt works well)
• Garlic, preferably fresh pressed garlic
• A large bowl to mix the dry brine in
• A non-metallic container (glass, enamel, plastic) to brine the fish in
• A smoker to smoke the fish in
• Preferred, but not required  a vacuum packer and bags to package your finished product.

Step 1 - Preparing the fish

Once I've got nice clean fillets, I take each fillet and cut the flesh vertically, down to the skin, but not through the skin. What you want to create are what I call "candy bar" strips... strips of flesh about 3/4" to 1" square, but still attached to the skin. I then take each fillet and decide how big I want the final product to be

Step 2 - Preparing the dry brine

This brine recipe is one of the simplest you will find.
Here are the basics:

4 cups dark brown sugar
1 cup non-iodized salt (canning & pickling or kosher salt) (To lower Salt in recipe I would recommend using 1/2 to 2/3 cup)
10-15 cloves of garlic
 

I prefer dark brown sugar over light brown sugar because I like the color that the dark brown sugar imparts on the fish
For the salt, I use non-iodized canning salt. For the garlic, try to use fresh garlic, and run it through a garlic press... if you're like me, you hate to peel garlic use the chopped garlic sold in a jar .   If using the garlic in a jar, I recommend mixing the brown sugar and the salt together and putting that on the fish and sprinkling the garlic over the top.  If you mix it in the brine becomes wet and it is hard to get it to evenly stick to the fish.

Step 3 - Brining the fish

Now it's time to brine the fish. Cover the fillets liberally with the dry brine mixture.

Once the fillets are coated, stack them in the bottom of a non-metallic pan. You can cover the bottom of the pot with brine, but it really doesn't matter... once the brine starts to work and some of the water from the fish is extracted, the whole thing turns into a gooey mess. I usually place the first fillets in the pot skin side down, and then alternate them as I continue... so all the fish lays flesh to flesh and skin to skin.

Once all my fish is in the brine, I cover the container and put it in the fridge for about six hours. The amount of time you keep the fish in the brine and the amount of salt you use in your brine mixture will determine how firm the flesh of the fish becomes, and how salty the taste of the end product will be.

Step 4 - Rinsing the brine

After the fish has sat in the brine in the fridge for six hours, take the pieces out one by one and rinse them gently in cold water.

You don't want to scrub them or disturb the flesh, you just want to get the heavy deposits of brine off. Once the fish is rinsed off, drain it the best you can and set it out on a rack to dry at room temperature. After rinsing and before this drying process next time I am going to sprinkle it with some brown sugar (you could also try things like red or black pepper, lemon or garlic pepper, soy sauce any flavor you want smoked into the meat.

You need to let the fish dry at least a couple of hours. I usually dry them for four to six hours, depending upon the thickness of the fillets. You don't want the room temperature to be too hot or too cold, what you're trying to do here is dry the fish out and form the pellicle on the surface of the flesh. Good airflow around the fish is helpful, you can even use a small fan to help the process if you'd like. If you're using the racks from your smoker, set it up so the thicker fillets are on the lower shelves, and the thinner fillets are on the upper shelves... this will even out how they dry once they're in the smoker.

Step 5 - Smoking the fish

The next step is to smoke the fish. There are lots of different smokers out there, and lots of them do a good job of smoking fish.

Preheat your smoker for 15 minutes to get it up to temperature. Put your rack of fish into it, and add your wood chips to get it smoking. The amount of wood chips and what type you use are completely up to your tastes. For this recipe in a Big Chief Smoker, I use one pan of alder chips at the start, and one pan of apple chips after one hour... then I let the fish sit in there and dry out for another four hours or so, for a complete smoking/drying time of about six hours. Again, this is done to taste, and due to wind and temperature fluctuations, I check on the appearance of the fish after about five hours, and make a judgment from there.  A hotter smoker and they fish will get done a lot quicker.  You want to keep the heat around 150 to 175 degrees.  If you use water in your smoker this will also make the cooking time vary.