health, safety and smoking temps

[dkruks]

Hey everyone, I hope the weekend has treated you all well...mine was fantastic.


I was smoking salmon this weekend and I looked for a few ideas and kind of did a mixture of a few different ideas. One of the recipes said to smoke the salmon for 2 hours @ 70* -90*f for 2 hours, then increase the temp to between 160* - 190*f...

my smoker is a pellet grill, and I have never set it on it's lowest setting before, so I fired it up and got it to 500*f for 10 min to rid and growth from last cook, then i turned the dial to the lowest setting and opened the door to allow it to cool fast...after about 30 min my smoker settled in at 80* - 110*f (kind of bouncing in that range from pellets dropping). So I put my brined salmon on and let it smoke for 2 hours, then slowly increase the temp until my smoker settled in at 180*f. I watched patiently until my salmon hit an IT of 150*F...
It turned out great!

My question is....I know that bacteria grows best in temps between 40*F - and 140*F, so is it safe to smoke meats in that temp range? (It seems to be a nice warm moist place for these little critters to sit back with there beach umbrellas, sip on margaritas and fornicate for hours!)

[MushCreek]

There seems to be a huge difference depending upon what the meat is. You sure wouldn't want to try that with chicken! Fish is a different animal (in more ways than one) and you can even eat it raw, as long as it's fresh. The brining will help kill or greatly curtail any bacteria present, and any survivors will be killed off as the fish gets hot. I have a friend who smokes salmon at 120-140 for many hours, and no one's gotten sick that he knows of. I dry beef jerky at very low temps, and again, never had a problem.

[ssbbqguy]

Smoked fish needs to be done to the point that it flakes. Worms won't die at lower temps on a smoker. Not meaning low temp smokehouses and brined fish, just small smokers. In today's times I actually cook Salmon to higher temps than of years past. Steve.

[dkruks]

Just gave a taste of the smoked salmon to 6 of my co-workers...3 of them told me that it was the best smoked salmon that they ever had!

thanks, i got this brine from the search...


Brine
2 C. Water
3 C. Apple Juice
1 C. Light Brown Sugar
1/2 C. Honey
2 Tbs. Soy Sauce
3/4 C. Kosher Salt
3 Bay Leaves

was from tommykendall

thanks again for everyones help

Dave

[landarc]

It is the brining, if you properly brine salmon for smoking, it can be cold smoked safely. In fact, you could do the same with chicken or any other meat. If you properly brine it, the salt prevents harmful bacterial growth. It just happens that fish like salmon and trout taste good despite, or because, of the brining. Whereas, most of us do not like really salty chicken.

[Mel]

smoked fish is really good and safe if its done right
the safer way in to days world is to truly cure the fish using cure #1, wet or dry method,
the two problems i have with salt only 1) salt doesn't kill any thing it only produces an environment the the bad stuff doesn't grow in, but is not fool prof. 2) the correct brine ( 80 deg) needs a lot of salt,- 2,229 lb per gal of water, a1in fillet for cold smoking needs to soak for 1h -- at BBQ temps soak for 30min --remember this brine is for curing its not a flavoring brine

fish starts to cook at about 85deg and fully cooked at145deg