cold smoking salmon

I take it you just put the tray in the bottom of the smoker and cover the hole in the side where the puck dispenser goes.
One thing I would caution about when using these is always cover them on top. I put two in the bottom of the smoker with a pan above them so drippings don't cause flare-ups.
 
I take it you just put the tray in the bottom of the smoker and cover the hole in the side where the puck dispenser goes.
I just leave the dispenser where it is. But as RC says you have to position or cover the tray so it’s not getting fat drips so you don’t get flare up. You can also use it in your bbq for chicken. Turn off half your bbq, put the tray under the grill on the unlit side with the chicken on top of the unlit grill- but not directly overtop the tray for the reason previously mentioned. Easy peasey and you get great smoked roast chicken.
 
Trying cold smoking salmon for first time in upcoming week. Have an electric smoker with an external smoke generator so my electric smoker element won't be on. If I understand correctly, it should be cold smoked anywhere between 12-24 hrs depending on how much smoke you want and smoked between 70-90F. If I continue to cold smoke overnight, how do I ensure it doesn't get below 70 degrees if i dont have any sort of heat source? Any advice would be appreciated. Seems like the brine is similar to a dry brine for hot smoking and you do everything prep wise such as develop pellicle over a fan or in fridge overnight. What happens if you are cold smoking and the temps inside smoker drop below 70 dur to overnight drop in outside temperature ?
Did our first CS end of this summer during a colder snap. Smoker was running around 70-85F. Have a large smoker, did about 14 big Coho in one set. I have bradly smoke generator. The heat it makes isn't much, the smoker has a hard time going above 85F. I keep the bottom rack empty so the fish doesn't get cooked by the smoker element near the "warm" smoke at the bottom.
We ran smoke for about 3-4hrs. I didn't think about running any longer as i didn't want to cook the fish. If you're going to go 12-24 hrs try with a small batch to see how it turns out.

This is some of the best tasting CS i have ever had, fish was fresh not frozen so that helps. I let it sit in the deep freeze for 30 days to lower the risk of getting sick from it. So far so good. Just fatter :)

note some of the pics are CN which i didn't CS. Another mistake is I didn't stir the dry brine enough so I got some patchy-looking brine patterns which for the most part went away in the smoke session. I need to improve this patchy brine any suggestions would be great other than just stirring the brine more often.
 

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would you do the same thing if you were smoking other meats? what I mean is do you open the door and add pellets every hour while smoking other things? how long does a small pile of pellets smoke for? a bradley puck is 20 mins. I am now curious. thanks
A pile of traeger pellets in the bradley lasts me about 45 minutes. Today I just used Napoleon grill cherry chips on it and it lasted even longer, more than an hour.
 
Rob: get one of these. A tray is good for 10 hours. I have used one since the smoke generator on my old Bradley gave out. You won’t regret it. https://www.amazon.ca/A-MAZE-N-AMNPS5X8-Pellet-Smoker/dp/B007ROPJ1M
I have one of these a-maz-n trays also. Works great in the bradley which I bought without the puck burner so It is paired up with this;
 
I have one of these a-maz-n trays also. Works great in the bradley which I bought without the puck burner so It is paired up with this;
That looks great. I would use that stepped temperature function for my hot smoked salmon strips.
 
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