How to Smoke Salmon

Smoking wild salmon or halibut is very simple if you follow some very basic processing rules. Smoked salmon comes in two distinct varieties: Hot smoked, or kippered, and cold smoked, or Nova lox. The main difference is the brining process and the temperature during the smoking process. Hot smoked salmon is fully cooked to 145 degrees where as cold smoked salmon is smoked at 80 degrees and is actually cured but still raw and so should be frozen for parasite control.

Try our smoked salmon products:

Nova Lox

Hot Smoked Salmon

Hot Smoked Fillet

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I want to stress that the utmost importance is to adhere to strict sanitary procedures. First, you should always start with clean and sanitized utensils. Use a .5 % bleach solution as a sanitizer. Keep your fish refrigerated during the whole process to prevent bacterial growth. During the smoking process, the smoke will prevent most bacteria growth, so refrigeration isn’t a concern until you remove your product from the smoker. Then you should package the product and refrigerate it as soon as possible.

I like to use alder wood for smoking, but any hard wood will work just fine. I have tried apple wood with good results, and maple, and hickory work well. Half the fun of smoking fish is developing new smoked salmon recipes. I encourage people to try your favorite spices maybe a little wine and you may just come up with your very own special smoked salmon recipe. If you stick to my basic cooking schedule and experiment with the brine and what you add after brining your product will be almost as good as ours. Just kidding! Please let me know how your smoked salmon recipe turns out.

There are four steps to smoking fish:

1. Brining or salting.
2. Curing
3. Drying to form a pellicle
4. Smoking

Follow these links to learn about different smoking processes:

• Hot smoking or kippering
• Cold smoking or Nova Salmon Lox
• Salmon jerky
• Smokehouse plans
• Buy Ed's Secret Brine Mix
• 

More smoked salmon recipes:

• Alaska Funny Moose smoked Salmon
• Smoking Salmon and Trout
• Bourbon Smoked Salmon
• The Salmons
• The Salmon University
• Austin National Smokers
• Salmon Recipes

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