When I got my first smoker from the SausageMaker (about a quarter century ago) it was initially to make venison summer sausage. A friend of mine hunted and had this recipe from his grandmother that called for cooking it in an oven at 150°F. That’s easier said than done, grandma. I got one of those silly wind-up convection fans that they’ve since stopped making because they were useless. I put a thermometer in a glass and tweaked the thermostat up and down until I got a fairly stable 150° as long as you didn’t open the door. Next season, I got the smoker.

It was meant to operate at low temperatures so that part was easier, but no matter where you set the thermostat it was very difficult to maintain a stable temperature. Then I got a rheostat that would turn on the juice when you dropped below a certain temperature and off again when you reached. Problem was, it did not have a thermometer scale…well, it did, but it was a separate decal and what angle you put it on was anybody’s guess. One day, making andouille, the smoker caught fire and burned it all away, from fat dripping on the heating element. But not before I learned the SausageMaker’s method of smoking salmon. It came in a pamphlet that accompanied my smoker on its long trip from Buffalo, NY. I still have it and refer to it whenever I smoke salmon:

 

After a while, a friend of mine who owned a seafood restaurant in Carrboro called me with a deal. If I’d smoke 3 salmon filets for him, he’d give me a 4^th one. That went on for a couple of years. Not only did I eat and share a lot of smoked salmon, I got the process down pretty good. The Kutas recipe was too salty, so I cut back on that. It calls for an ounce of bay leaves and that’s a whole lot, so I cut back on that. I developed a taste for juniper berries, so those started going into the brine. Dave’s Seafood is long gone, along with Dave who moved to Nova Scotia in 1998, but I still haven’t gotten tired of this salmon. The brining makes it moist and spicy and the low temperature leaves it succulent.

Since then I’ve gotten a Bradley Smoker with which there is no danger of fire. Last summer, I built a temperature controller, originally meant for doing sous vide – but I made it universal with switched plugs on GFI (so I don’t electrocute myself) and unswitched plugs for accessories like the CPU fans I put in the smoker for convection. With these improvements, smoking is a no-brainer. Here’s the brine recipe and method – which can be adapted for use in any smoker.

Brine:

1 ounce Insta Cure #1 (or substitute salt)
2 ounces sea salt
2 ounces brown sugar
1 ounce Tellicherry peppercorns
1 ounce juniper berries
1 ounce allspice whole
1/8 ounce bay leaves
1 gallon water

Break up spices in blender or spice grinder. If using a blender, add two cups of the water and blend on high for about a minute. Heat water to boiling, add spices and sea salt, and allow to cool one hour. Add the curing salt after cooling, if you’re using it. Brine 8 hours at 38°F. Hang vertically at room temperature to drip dry until pellicle (glassy-eyed glaze) forms. This takes 6-8 hours. Smoke horizontally for 4 hours at 132°F using alder wood.

Here’s a pictorial…

 

 Check for pinbones in the salmon and remove them with needle-nose pliers. This frozen salmon, from Lowe's, had them already removed. Thank you, Alaskans!

 

 

 

 Rinse the salmon with fresh water after it has been brined to remove any spice debris. Here is my patented method of attaching it to a pants hanger for drying. The dowel rod keeps it from slipping out.

 

 

Mandatory curing room picture (because Gary and Linda would ask me where it was otherwise). I put a pan underneath to catch the drippings. Vertical drying is better than horizontal because excess brine will drip off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A pan of water below keeps the salmon from drying out. Fans above circulate the air. There are 4 CPU fans, two aimed up and two aimed down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The PID controller used in this regulator does not do Fahrenheit, so I convert. (55.5C = 132F)

 

 

 

 

 

 Here's a better look at the smoke generator. Alder "bisquets" are fed automatically into the box with the aluminum tube, where they smolder one at a time with a pan of water beneath to extinguish them when the next one feeds in.

 

The tail end of the salmon gets kinda dry. Gordon, the chef at Dave’s Seafood, came up with a great use for this and other bits and pieces that might otherwise get thrown away – make salmon mousse.

  Combine 4 ounces smoked salmon, zest and juice from 1/2 lemon, 1 ounce heavy cream, a sprig of dill, and 8 ounces cream cheese in a food processor. Whrrrr!

 

 Serve with Ritz toasted chips, salt-brined capers, cornichons, and - if you're feeling extravagant -salmon roe.

I wasn't.

 

 

Uh-oh. Check out the date on my homemade cornichons - they're over 10 years old!  'Course, if you're eating salmon mousse, it probably doesn't matter...