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Cold Smokin' Salmon

Fijimn

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May 7, 2008
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I am going to try my hand at cold smoking salmon. I have a 2.5 lbs skin-on filet that just finished a 3 day cure and now air drying in the fridge until tomorrow. I'm going to use a smoke box with alder or hickory chips -- plan is to drop one or two coals in box, cover with chips and close up the box. Should be sufficient to create smoke but limit the heat. Everything i read is keep cold smoke under 100 degrees - which is about ambient temperatures in Houston. Any tips?
 
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I am going to try my hand at cold smoking salmon. I have a 2.5 lbs skin-on filet that just finished a 3 day cure and now air drying in the fridge until tomorrow. I'm going to use a smoke box with alder or hickory chips -- plan is to drop one or two coals in box, cover with chips and close up the box. Should be sufficient to create smoke but limit the heat. Everything i read is keep cold smoke under 100 degrees - which is about ambient temperatures in Houston. Any tips?
I do my cold smoking at night. That way I know the ambient temp is much cooler and I aim for about 75 to 80F smoker temp.
 
I do my cold smoking at night. That way I know the ambient temp is much cooler and I aim for about 75 to 80F smoker temp.

That sounds like a good idea. I was shooting for about 3 hour smoke and see how it is. I read about a hack using a soldering iron as heat source for the wood chips in a smoke box.
 
That sounds like a good idea. I was shooting for about 3 hour smoke and see how it is. I read about a hack using a soldering iron as heat source for the wood chips in a smoke box.
You can also buy a smoking tube from the zon form 13 bucks. I fill mine with wood pellets, get it smoking, then introduce it near the meat but never in close proximity (greater than 3 feet). It gives me an even burn, continuously smoking, to 5 hrs. Works great even at say 50F (ambient air temp) in Iowa.
 
Interested to catch up on this thread after some opinions. Never done some fish.

@jasonrann

I am not much of a wizard around the grill/smoker with fish. I am typically pan frying or baking my salmon and deep fry other fish like walleye and crappy. That said, I did try salmon last summer and it was outstanding. I had a very simple approach though, just hit it with rub and my seasoning blend and smoked over hickory/mesquite chips for about 45 minutes. I had the fillet in foil (poked holes in the foil) and drizzled with olive oil so it didn't dry out. We opened the foil for about the last 15 minutes.
 
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Just an fyi, cold and hot smoking are different, but both can be successfully used on fish. It depends on what you're looking for as far as a finished product is concerned.
 
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