Cold cherry Smoked cured Jack Daniels Salmon

Don Marco

Howdy...

Cold Smoked Salmon is awesome - and expensive.

Heres how you can do a way better product than the store bought salmon at home for 1/4 of the costs.

This is a 3 pound half salmon (skin on ) from Norway. I cured it with Kosher salt, brown sugar, pepper and Dill, basted it with some Jack Daniels and smoked it over cherry sawdust with the Pro-Q Cold Smoke Generator.



After rinsing and drying you need to pull all remaining bones out. If you have a good fishmonger there will be none or just a few.



I mixed 1 cup kosher salt with 1/2 cup brown sugar and ground up some black pepper and added it to the mix. Then i spread that all over the salmon and rubbed it in a bit. Then i covered the whole thing with dried Dill and wrapped it in foil.
You need to put this into the coldest part of your refrigerator and put some weight on it. I used some cedar planks to distribute the weight of a sixpack of beer.
Important : Let it cure for 48-60 hours and turn it over once about every 12 hours.
The salt will pull some juices out of the fish.


















After 48-60 hours, clean the salmon under running water and pat it dry.It should look like this






Then i basted the salmon and myself a couple of times with some gentleman Jack

Let the Jack dry a bit between each coating and do not lick it off the Salmon.



Heres the CSG about halfway filled with cherry sawdust. This gives about 4-5 hours of constant cold smoke.





Talk about COLD smoking...







Because it was freezing outside i had a fist sized lump of charcoal in the egg wich i lighted with the Looftlighter. It kept slowly burning and kept the Temps inside up. ( The Thermapen reads Celsius)






After 5 hours of Smoke i pulled the Salmon off the egg, basted it with an EVOO/Jack Daniels mixture and covered it with Dill again. Its important to not slice it directly after smoking, as it definately needs a night in the fridge to get the flavours distributed.
The smell was wonderful and the waiting was the hardest part...







So, after the looooooooooooong wait it was finally time to slice the salmon

The cherry smoke is perfect for the salmon with dill and Jack Daniels.

Thanks to the foodsaver i will have some happy family and friends.





















The Salmon is very very tender and is perfect on sliced bread with butter, cream cheese and Onions.
Wish i had a bagel around here..




So long

DM

Waterscapes

Wow looks like alot of work but worth it. I must try this one.
Thanks

Don Marco

Rainman wrote:

Wow looks like alot of work but worth it. I must try this one.
Thanks

Well it looks like a lot of work but after all it was about an hour of time really spent on the salmon. The rest is curing, smoking and resting.

It is very rewarding though, go for it !

DM

Smokey

Dayum, that looks goooood.

Please send some this way!!

Smoking Coles

Fantastic pictorial. Looks amazing, I'll have to try that.

Florida Grillin Girl

That looks wonderful. I will trade you some bagels for some salmon!

Thanks for the great pics.

Faith

Clam

I'm archiving this one! I always have lots of salmon. I have read somewhere that you want to use very fresh fish. Can you use previously frozen? I don't see why not.

Thank you Don Marco!

Jupiter Jim

DM,
WOW, what a great cook and description of the process and great pictures.
Whit out doubt one of the best how to post I have seen on the forum. It looks so good I want to scrape it off the screen and taste it.
Thank you for sharing.
Jupiter Jim

Don Marco

You can use frozen Salmon but the texture will be a lot different so i suggest fresh.
The big advantage of fresh cured salmon is also that you can freeze it after curing without a big loss in quality.

DM

Gator Bait

 
I have to confess that I am no fan of Salmon or dill but in this case I will make a huge exception. That looks fantastic Don. As always the post/photos are great. Thanks for sharing.

Have a great day and keep warm,

Gator

 

PapaB

DM, awesome job....the CSG you refer to, is that cold smoke generator? Can you point me to some info on what that is, how it works, and how to get one?

Thanks in advance,

PapaB

Don Marco

PapaB wrote:

DM, awesome job....the CSG you refer to, is that cold smoke generator? Can you point me to some info on what that is, how it works, and how to get one?

Check out this Thread for more Details on the CSG

http://www.eggheadforum.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&func=view&id=707118&catid=1#


I dont know if its available in the US yet, but it should be available direct via www.macsbbq.co.uk

dm

EggSimon

looks very tastey, Marco !

Ripnem

Great post Don.

That must have been 11*C. What was the outside air temp?

That stuff looks amazing

eenie meenie

Don Marco, The cold smoked salmon looks awesome.

I just ordered the CSG gizmo and then ordered some of the dust. I can not wait to try my hand at this.

As usual, your cook and pics are awesome. Thanks for the tutorial! Stay warm.

cookn biker

Nice job on the post!! That's work it's self. Way to practice your patience Don!! I agree with the cherry being perfect with salmon.
Thanks Don!

JCO

This looks fabulous. I just put some to cure myself last night, I should be smoking it by Sunday. I have done this myself several times and it's always been a big hit with family and friends.

I usually use a recipe for the cure from the book "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing" by Ruhlman and Polcyn. It always turns out great. I will have to try your recipe with the cracked pepper and dill, it looks better.

Also, for the cold smoking process I use a very simple and very inexpensive cold smoking technique that I got from the following site:

http://www.smoker-cooking.com/build-a-cold-smoker.html

Works like a champ and is very easy. And did I say cheap?

Note that it's very important to keep the temperature of the smoking process under 90 deg. F, otherwise you will end up with cooked salmon. Down here in Mobile Alabama, I can only do this in the winter. It's impossible to keep the temperature down during any other time.

Thanks for the recipe and instrut

WokOnMedium

I bet it was more work to take those beautiful pictures for us than it was to smoke the salmon. That made me hungry! So so so hungry.

That was an awesome step by step. Thanks for doing that!

PapaB

Thanks, DM. Will look for one and check it out.

Davekatz

Great pics and a wonderful recipe! Love the little video. Cold smoking is something I haven't done yet, but after seeing this truly eggcellent post I just gotta try it.

Where did you get the Smoke Generator from?

Thanks,

Dave

ranger ray

a really nice presentation!..... i particularly like the foil wrapped cardboard for the suck and seal..... thanks for sharing....rr

Dave in So Cal

Very, very nice. I have smoked salmon with cherry chunks. It turned out nice, but not nearly as nice as yours.

JCO

I love the knife you used to slice it. What type is it? The slices look perfect!

Anthony

Hello Don,

Do you think the Pro-Q would work with wood chips or only sawdust?

Here is a begel recipe, they are a lot of work.

http://www.tammysrecipes.com/homemade_bagels

Anthony

Loco Lobo

Way cool, I'm headed to the fish store!

This gives me a new idea on salmon.

SomedayMommy

That's fantastic! Couple of quick questions...

Do you soak the pellets at all? Doesn't look like it! Does the tip go down into the pellets themselves?

JCO

No, the pellets are not soaked. And yes the tip of the soldering gun does touch the pellets.

Also, you may have to replace the pellets after if you are smoking for a long while (4-6 hours). The can gets hot, so don't touch it with bare fingers (learned the hard way)

Canugghead

Absolutely gorgeous cook and photography Don, I bookmarked it. Thanks for sharing.
-Gary

duchunter

AWESOME LOOKING FISH!!!!!!!

So my questions is where do I buy the Pro-Q in the USA???