Fish brines for smoking

Here are two recipes for brines. The first being just a basic brine and seasoning can be add to as you feel fit. This is also a good brine to use and then just bake or grill your fish and serve with a nice tarter sauce, or dill sauce, or an aioli (garlic mayo)

Brine recipe 1)

  1 gallon water
  1cup kosher salt
  1/2 cup sugar
  2 sliced lemons
  1/4 cup choped garlic
Optional; 1/2 chopped dill.

combine all ingredients in a large pot and bring to a simmer to dissolve the salt and sugar. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temp and then chill in fridge then brine fish for 4 to 8 hours, pull out of brine and rinse, pat dry and allow to air dry before smoking. It should get a tacky feeling to it, thats called pellicle and is important for the smoke to adhere to the fish. Remember this is a hot smoked method meaning that your fish will cook in the smoker, just be sure not to over cook it.

The second brine is a good smoke brine and is the one I use with trout and salmon.

Brine 2)

 1/3cup brown sugar
2cups soy sauce
1cup water
1/2tsp garlic powder
1/2tsp pepper
1/2tsp onion powder
1/2tsp hotsauce
1cup dry white wine

combine all ingriedents and dissolve sugar over a low heat then cool. Brine fish for 8 hours, rinse and agian allow fish to dry to develop the tacky surface (pellicle) and smoke.

I like to play with my food so I am always trying some different spices to my brines. Always start with a little and taste then adjust as needed. Curry is a fun one to add to the brine, depending on how strong you like it, or ginger. Let your mind wonder. Don't be afraid to try, and mostly, take notes. I can't tell you how many times I made something from the top of my head and din't write it down and couldn't remember it.

That's what I'm talking about FC!

So ... what can you tell me about wood choices, smoke times, and temperature?

-Allen

Wood choices are pretty broad. If you have a walmart around you can pick up luhr jenson chips for about $3. That is your best bet. For fish Alder chips are nice because they impart a sweetness, also does fruit woods like apple and cherry. But you can use any hard wood. (no evergreens please) So try some and find one that you like.

As for your time and temp that all depends on what type of smoker and the size. I have two, I have a little cheif by Luhr Jensons that I use for small amounts of meat. Those are nice cause you just put the chips in the pan and on the burner and let it smoke. Most of them come with a smoke guide which you should follow and make adjustments from there. My other smoker is one I built to smoke hams and big meats. you can walk in this one, it looks like and old out house from the outside. I did some hams in it last year and it was fun.
So just keep with the instruction that come with the little smokers and you chould be ok. But in the rough if you have a temp of 160 and are doing trout it will take about 1 to 2 hours of smoke. Thats a rough guide.

FC

I'm writin' em down.

I've smoked tuna before, but never salmon until last week, and that batch sucked because of too much salt.  I borrowed a little chef from my father up here and I have a different setup down in San Jose.  The little chef seems a little on the cool side and my smoker down in San Jo runs a bit hot.  I've used cherry and apple on the tuna and kind of like the fruit wood.  My dad like to use hickory on his salmon, which is a stronger smokier taste.  My tuna brine consists of equal parts soy sauce and mirin (sweet sake), with some garlic and ginger thrown in.  The hotter smoker tends to dry out normal tuna loins, but throw a batch of tuna bellies on and you have food for kings.  The hotter smoker melts down the excess oil in the bellies, which normally are too oily.  Too bad I haven't caught a tuna in 2 years.  My mouth is watering thinking about it.

Anyway, the salmon season is winding down here, unless I decide to keep a chum or 2.  I may just do that to experiment a bit with smoking salmon.  I don't want to ruin another batch of silver fillets.  That hurt.

-Allen

We can tuna bought off the boats here in town. About half of it we smoke in the chief for two pans of chips and then put them in the jar with a piece of serrano pepper. Makes the best chip dip!! Will have to post that recipe where it goes.
I too have ruined more than my share of salmon trying to master the tricks.Now I take it to a freind and he keeps half of all fish smoked, but it is perfect.

The fat content in the tuna is what kept it from drying out. The sad thing is it can get rancid faster because of the fat.
On the little chief smokers that don't have a temp control you need to keep and eye on it so as not to dry out the fish. Hot smoking is anything above 160 degrees and you need to watch it. Hey if you like to play with the smoker try smoking some tomatos and Jalepenos (then they are called chipoltes) and make a smoked tomato sauce or salsa. You can even use fruit Teas to smoke with instead of wood chips. The chief that you say is a cool smoke may just need more time to finish the smoking process, less fish or thinner cuts of fish.
Let me know if you want to make gravlox (a dry cured salmon, which is my favorite, no smoke just cured, or a little cold smoke at the end to finish) I did some Mac's that way, lox style and they where tastey.

You know you can smoke any fish, you don't have to wait for salmon season. Trout, bass, walleye, sturgeon which is wonderful smoked, oysters, the neighbors cat, whatever, it's all good.
The key to control is to get a thermometer for the smoker though.

How sweet is mirin sake, it may be good for lox, I will have to try it. Love that ginger!

Hey Allen,

I used to keep two Little Chief smokers going all blackmouth season.  When the weather is cold or windy,  I would just throw an old blanket over the top to hold in the heat a little.  It works fine if you don't want a "cold" smoke.  The blanket would smell pretty good when you were finished though    I guess it could be a fire hazard if you get the blanket too close to the burner, but I was always checking it out.  Ambient air temp and wind will sure vary the time needed.

Gary

Yea I have some salmon I want to smoke but the temp here just dropped 38 degrees in the day and 11 and lower at night, suppose to warm up over the weekend but rain. They predict snow for our area, wenatchee and Levenworth, for tonight and tommorow and then the rain on the weekend.
Luhr Jenson sells the thermal blanket for the smokers but I have never seen one in thestore. I guess I would have to order it. I might just go and get a cheap moving quilt and try that.

OK.  So I've been doing some smoking lately and wanted to report I'm getting better at it.

I smoked some chum salmon on Christmas Eve day.  My dad had smoked some chum a few weeks prior and it came out a bit salty.  He used his own tried and true brine and I concluded that these chum took to the salt a bit more than normal.  So I decided to use my soysauce/mirin/ginger brine.  Brined it overnight and then smoked with apple wood (2 trays) for 6 hours.    Half way through I basted with some olive oil because I had noticed my dad's batch came out a little dry and my thinking was that the chum's had a lower oil content and needed a little help.  I was in a bit of a rush to get out the door, and the fish wasn't quite done and it was a cold day, so I finished it off in the oven for a few minutes.  I turned out pretty good I think and the olive oil definitely helped.

I smoked another batch this week, this time with a fresh chum that I pulled out of the Nisqually last Saturday.  I decided to try a different brine, this time using a recipe I found on Gamefishin.  The recipe is as follows:

ROCK FISH'S Smoked Candy

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup salt
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp pepper

Cut fish into no bigger than 6"x4"

Mix all ingredance into bowl .Place fish into mix coating all .Place fish skin side down in a 2ndglass bowl (the bigger the better).Layering the fish till done.

The fish will start to emulsify so don’t fill to the top. Cover with plastic wrap and put in frig for 2 days rotating fish from top to bottom after 1 day. After 2 days rinse the fish slightly and shake off water put on smoker rack. Let sit for 1/2hr. Preheat smoker then place fish in for 6 to8+ hr depending on thickness using HICKORY or your preferred smoking chips. Fish should look caramel in color when done.

So I dutifully brined for 2 days, and when I went to plug in the smoker, it kept tripping my circuit breaker.  I had borrowed one from my dad that he has had for maybe 25 years so I decided to retire the broken one.  I ran to the store and get a new Little Chief.  After 5.5  hours in the new smoker, this time using hickory (2 trays), and again basting with olive oil half way through, I decided the fish was done.  In fact, it was a tad overdone and the edges were a little dry, probably because the new smoker was hotter (makes sense as the old coil probably lost some of its heat capability).  Next time I'll smoke for a little less time.  The batch still turned out quite good.  I think I like this brining technique as the fish was definitely a nice savory smoky flavor.

I still have some more chum in the freezer and next time I will try floatin cowboys' brine recipe #2.  I'll let you know the results of that when I do it.

-Allen

I'm going to resurrect this old topic because I hate the only brine recipe I tried a couple of years ago.  Gag me with salt, for pity's sake!

I have some suggestions from C_Run, bb2fish and surfs12foot and will each of them as small samples.  Thanks, folks!

What's your favorite brine recipe?

I'm aiming for a sweet end product, like smoked salmon candy, by request from the Grandkids.  The more recipes I can gather, the better my chances of making some mighty picky kids happy.

Help some kids in desperate need to candied salmon.   

This is the base recipe I started with (stolen from here: http://www.uncledavesenterprise.com/file/garden/storage/The%203%20Men's%20Fish%20Smoking%20Process.pdf) and is still my go-to brine.

• 1 U.S. gallon of water at room temperature
• 2 cups salt
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon garlic juice (or 1 tablespoon garlic powder)
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon allspice (it is best to sift this into the water to avoid clumping
• 2 teaspoons white pepper

That's a moderately salty mix and it's pretty easy to overdo it if you don't watch your brining times. I generally use the recommendations they give in the PDF linked above.

To end up with a sweeter finished product I do two things: replace the water with apple juice, and sprinkle with brown sugar to taste while the fish is drying (after you remove it from the brine).

Looking forward to hearing the results of your test!

My brine is about as simple as it gets, but it has turned out good every time.  I have tried many other brines, but this is still my go to for salmon and trout.

It is a dry brine.

One cup white sugar
One cup non iodized salt
One tablespoon Prague powder

Mix Ingredients together and either roll fish in the powder or sprinkle a generous coat on the fish.

I keep the skin on and do bigger trout (16”+) as a full filet and salmon, cut into smaller strips.

After one hour of brining, rinse well in cold water, pat dry, then allow to air dry about an hour.  For sweeter fish, sprinkle brown sugar on the fish while air drying.

This recipe is very quick and easy.  I was surprised how good the fish turned out.

I've been known to finish the smoking product with a basting stroke of honey while it's cooling.  It's a nice candy smoky syrup on whatever it touches on the plate.  MMM.  I'm ready to do some smokin.

This is the base recipe I started with (stolen from here: http://www.uncledavesenterprise.com/file/garden/storage/The%203%20Men's%20Fish%20Smoking%20Process.pdf) and is still my go-to brine.
...

To end up with a sweeter finished product I do two things: replace the water with apple juice, and sprinkle with brown sugar to taste while the fish is drying (after you remove it from the brine).

Looking forward to hearing the results of your test!

Thank you very much, Captain.  I wouldn't have thought of using apple juice for added sweetness, but it makes perfect sense - now that I've read it.

My brine is about as simple as it gets, but it has turned out good every time.  I have tried many other brines, but this is still my go to for salmon and trout.

I used a dry brine the last time (not this recipe), and I'd bet I left the fish in the brine way too long - I'm too ashamed to say how long, but it was a whole lot longer than an hour.  I'm interested in seeing how your recipe works.  Thank you!

I've been known to finish the smoking product with a basting stroke of honey while it's cooling.  It's a nice candy smoky syrup on whatever it touches on the plate.  MMM.  I'm ready to do some smokin'.

I thought abut a honey glaze but didn't know if the honey would stay on the salmon.  Sounds great!

Thanks, everyone!  The entire herd will be coming for Thanksgiving this year.  I'll let you know what the judges have to say.