smoked salmon tonight Q's

mattyg

I'm doing smoked salmon tonight on my Kamado (w/ BGE internals). I brined it on Thursday, dried it on Friday and am smoking it tonight. I have the DigiQ (this is the second cook with it) to control temps (180*). I was just wondering if anyone had any tips for keeping the temps down. I've heard about putting charcoal in a coffee can with holes in it to make sure the fire doesn't get too hot. I am concerned that the charcoal won't last for 5 hrs though.

Maybe I am making a big to do about nothing, but this salmon is for my MIL b-day and I don't want to screw it up. Thoughts?

JLOCKHART29

I smoked some cheese couple weeks ago with the "Q" for and hr. and never got over about 110. If cooking at 180 it should be a piece of cake. I would let it be stablized for at least an hr before I walked off and leave it. Before I got the "Q" I used a coffie can to smoke cheese but had to baby sit it and would not leave especially 5 hr.!

thirdeye

Your Guru will take care of the pit temp. Just build a small fire and let it stabilize before adding the salmon. I have a Competitor model and I start off with the lowest pit temp on the dial. For me that is 175° or 180°. I used a raised grid and as you can see, I position the pit probe 2" above the fish and usually rotate the grate once or twice to balance out the cook. One good thing with smoking salmon, it's no problem in opening the pit for tending it. I usually pull it off when it gets to an internal of 140°.

stike

you trying to do cold smoked salmon? ...intended to be served cold, with cream cheese (or other) as a kinda brunch-thing ?

180 is still "hot" smoking (cooking) it.

if you want true cold smoked salmon, and since you brined it, it sounds like maybe that's where you're headed, you will want to try to go even lower. max temp is about 140 for that.

easier than doing the coffee-can trick is to maybe use the kamado as a source for the smoke. you'd have a low fire (as low as you can go), then come off the top with a metal dryer vent into a smoke box. a cardboard smoke box would be fine. a cookie rack held up in the middle by skewers poked thru the box would do it.

the longer the dryer vent, the more the smoke has a chance to cool. and it allows you to run a slightly hotter fire (easier to keep going), while still doing a true cold smoke.