Problems smoking salmon

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Dr. Endo

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So, I have a UDS that I made over a year ago now. I love it, and I've become pretty confident about my cooking skills with it. I've smoked whole fish in it before with good results but today was the first time that I tried salmon fillets. After reading all of the good reviews about "thirdeye's" recipe, I decided to go with that. I mixed up my brine/paste and followed the instructions closely. The flavor was fantastic but they were CRAZY SALTY! What do you guys with more experience than myself think that I did wrong. I washed off the fillets just as he told me to. The only deviation that I am guilty of committing was that I used granular salt instead of kosher salt. But would that make that big of a difference? I'm excited to try again but thought I would pool your guys thoughts on the matter.
 
That is probably why you have the problem Use kosher Thirdeye has a conversion and you would use a differab]nt amount with kosker than granular I believe there are other differences too
 
rinse it before you smoke it , the salt is to help pull the moisture out
 
kosher salt is coarser and lower in sodium than table salt. could make a huge diff...
 
2 things
1) When curing always go by weight instead of volume
2) As has been said above table or fine salt has a higher density than kosher and 1 C table salt can weigh almost twice as much as the same amount of Kosher.
 
Just to be clear: kosher salt is neither less salty nor lower in sodium than any other kind if salt. Salt (NaCl) is salt is a rock is salt. Kosher salt is shaped in such a way that you get less mass of salt per the same volume if crystals, but that's density, not sodium content. Weight is the way to compare, but for Morton's, it's 5:4. Also, just FYI, "kosher salt" is not the only salt which is kosher. It's just the salt that you use to kosher bloody meat.

dmp
 
^^^^he nailed it. Yeah there are different size grains of kosher salt. I have some that is labeled coarse kosher and i Like to use it in rubs. Iodized sale-table salt has grains like sugar. Keep in mind different kosher brands may have different grain sizes. The sizes of sale are:popcorn salt(the tiniest) through table salt, various kosher salts, various sea salts, rock salts, up to slabs of salt the size of a dinner table or larger.
 
It even gets more complicated, but probably not significantly, by anti-caking and other additives put in salt. For example, non-iodized Morton table salt contains calcium silicate while Morton coarse Kosher salt contains Yellow Prussiate of Soda. Morton's iodized salt contains dextrose and potassium of iodine in addition to calcium silicate.

There are conversion charts online to help sort this all out.
 
Stick with the kosher salt. I use 1 cup kosher salt, 4 cups brown sugar and 10 -15 cloves crushed garlic. Dry brine for about 6 hours. Recipe stolen from www.salmonuniversity.com. Nice simple brine. Works perfect every time.
 
You guys are amazing. I love being a part of this group. I think that the bottom line here would be - "you can use a variety of salts for your brine, but just know what salt your using and calculate by weight, solubility, and surface area"

I can do that, I guess this leaves me to try a couple more fillets next weekend. I'll update you all on my progress. I'm going to try the table salt again (just for the challenge) but consider size and weight of the granules and see if I can get it done right.
 
Dr. Endo said:
I'm going to try the table salt again (just for the challenge) but consider size and weight of the granules and see if I can get it done right.
Click to expand...

Why make things more difficult than they need to be? A box of Kosher salt will set you back <$5 and will give you a far more consistent product. You're working with a high cost protein in Salmon, no need to risk ruining another batch when there's a tried and true alternative easily available.
 
I smoke salmon a lot. The only time it was really too salty was when I only had about half the amount of Kosher salt I needed and substituted in some table salt for the rest. I do know that people have different tastes when it comes to saltiness. We generally prefer a 4:1 ratio of brown sugar:salt, but others use 3:1 or even 2:1. There are no hard and fast rules. Play with it until you get what you like.
 
After dealing with over salted dried out salmon to many time I just quit trying to brine or salt it. I stuff it with crab and run the uds at 300 until it is cooked.
 
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