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Hello again and welcome back! This year has started off with a series of blog posts featuring things I have wanted to learn but for one reason or another procrastinated. This post focuses on curing and cold smoking, two areas covered in a great book named Charcuterie The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing
. For this cook I cured, then cold smoked a beautiful piece of farm raised salmon. Now sit back, grab a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and enjoy this post for Big Green Egg Cold Smoked Salmon.
Big Green Egg Cold Smoked Salmon
Although there are a lot of moving parts to this recipe the cure used for the salmon was simple featuring just two ingredients: Coarse Salt & Brown Sugar.
Mix the salt and brown sugar well and place a layer on the bottom of a pan before laying the salmon on top. Then cover the salmon with the remainder of the salt, sugar mixture.
I moved the cured salmon to a deeper dish since the cure creates a brine when pulling the moisture from the fish. Here is the salmon after 36 hours in the cure.
After 24-48 hours, rinse the salmon under cold then place it in a bowl of cold water for 30 minutes to extract the salt.
Pull the salmon out of the water and place on a wire rack, then refrigerate (uncovered) overnight. This helps dry the salmon creating a surface the smoke will adhere to.
After the salmon sits overnight in the fridge it is time to set up your Big Green Egg for the cold smoke. I used the Amazen Pellet Smoker
with Apple Wood pellets
.
Fill the maze with the pellets.
Clean out all of the lump charcoal in your Big Green Egg so the fire box is empty. To light the pellet smoker, place on top of your grate, light the corner of the smoker with a butane torch, and let the flame burn for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, blow out the flame, and place the pellet smoker in the bottom of your fire box (mine sits on top of my Kick Ash Basket
below).
Keep the top and bottom vents all the way open and let the smoke billow from the Big Green Egg. Place your ConvEGGerator
legs up and then the grill grate on top to complete your set up.
Remember this is a COLD SMOKE so if you are doing this in weather above 70° Fahrenheit you need to add a tray of ice to your environment to keep temp under 90°. Fortunately, this cook was in February and it was 32° outside.
Once the pellet smoker has been producing smoke for another 10 minutes place your salmon inside on top of a wire rack on the grill grate. Close the dome and let the salmon smoke away for 6 to 12 hours.
For this cook, the salmon was ready at the 8 hour mark. As you can see the smoke was still going strong with this little pellet smoker!
Pull the smoked salmon from the Big Green Egg and place it on a large piece of butcher paper. Wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight before slicing and serving.
Big Green Egg Cold Smoked Salmon
Serve with lemon, chopped hard-boiled egg, sliced red onion, capers, cream cheese, and fresh bagels.
This was an amazing experience and one I look forward to doing again soon trying various aromatics for the salmon cure.
Big Green Egg Cold Smoked Salmon
Ingredients
- 2-3 Lbs. Salmon Filet
- 2 1/2 Cups of Coarse Salt
- 2 1/2 Cups of Brown Sugar
Instructions
- To make the cure:
- Combine the salt and brown sugar in a mixing bowl and mix well.
- Spread 1/3 of the cure over the bottom of a glass baking dish large enough to hold the fish.
- Lay the salmon on top of the cure.
- Spread the remaining cure on top of the salmon to cover the fish completely.
- Cover the dish with plastic wrap and cure the fish in your refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours.
- After 24-48 hours in the cure rinse the cure off the salmon under cold running water.
- Place the salmon in a large bowl and cover with cold water.
- Soak for 30 minutes, then drain well.
- Blot the salmon dry on both sides with paper towels.
- Lay the salmon on a wire rack over a sheet pan and let the salmon dry, uncovered, in the refrigerator over night.
- Fill your Amazen Pellet Smoker with Apple Wood pellets and light in one corner.
- Let the flame burn 10 minutes before blowing it out to produce the smoke.
- If you’re smoking the salmon on a warm day (temperature above 70 degrees), arrange the fish on a wire rack over a roasting pan filled with ice. (The fish should be at least 1 inch above the ice.)
- Empty out your fire box and place the Amazen Pellet smoker inside.
- Put the ConvEGGerator in the Big Green Egg for indirect cooking.
- Place the salmon on a wire rack in the Big Green Egg on top of the grill grate.
- Now cold smoke the salmon 6-12 hours. You will know when it is ready when it takes on that semi-firm and leathery look.
- Wrap the salmon in butcher paper and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight.
- Slice using a sharp knife diagonal to the fish, cut the salmon into paper-thin slices.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Thanks for that awesome recipe and all the detail. I’m stoked to be trying it now/overnight. Most people in the comments going through their setup and experience never mention the overnight fridge drying step. Is it that most skip it? Would be great as I’m short on time, already reducing curing by a few hours (will be doing something like 18-20h at best).
I would not skip that curing step or reduce the time as that’s the part keeping you safe. Raw salmon could be a bad thing to eat and curing it kills the bacteria that would negatively affect you.
Argh – I understand. Thanks for the prompt reply.
I cured it for 17 or 17.5h. Then rinsed and soaked 30min, then fridge dried 2.5h. Smoking for 4.5h. On the low side obviously, hopefully ok?
Should be ok
Hi Chris
This salmon is fantastic. Thanks so much for your detailed and clear recipe. I really like that you have provided feedback on the comments and questions as that helped me get it right from the start. I have now made this three times – 24hr brining with 6 hr smoke using alder pellets. It has gotten rave reviews from family and friends (we have to share a little 🙂 every time. Really appreciate you sharing your expertise.
You are most welcome ?
Oh I second that. This has become my staple recipe. But it’s always great. Have played with it a bit, added maple sugar for instance in the brine. Was great. Thanks again.
Just tried this recipe and it’s awesome. The details and steps are very well explained. I found the tail piece much saltier then the rest of the salmon as the meat is thinner. I would cut that piece off and soak it a while longer to remove the over salty taste. But overall, it was a great success.
Thank you! Great tip on the skinny end 🙂
hi. great recipe.
would this same recipe work on sockeye? or do you suggest as a first timer, use farm raised or king (if i could find king)
Sockeye should work as it’s an oily fish. To be direct, I’ve never tried it so cannot confirm. Let us know how it worked out!
I tried it with sockeye once and I didn’t like it as much. Texture was good but it tasted more “fishy”.
Hi Chris. I’m a newbie to this recipie and I forgot to cut skin off salmon before curing?. Its 22hrs into curing process. Should I cut if off now and continue to cure for another day?
I’ve never had this happen. However, my gut tells me just remove the skin and keep going. The brine should have penetrated enough to be safe. But with salmon you don’t want to take chances with food safety.
Thanks for your thoughts. Just removed it and will continue to let it soak in remaining salt mixture for remaining time. Will let u know?
I typically leave the skin on. It gets saltier than I like with the skin removed. I’ve done it both ways several times.
I have a friend who’s family has used this method for generations. Salmon fisherman. However, they don’t do the rinse. What are your thoughts on that? I’m nervous it will be to salty.
I have always rinsed and it turns out amazing.
Hey Chris, I absolutely love this recipe!! I live in Charleston so I don’t get too many cold smoking days. I made more than I can eat and have the leftovers vacuum sealed in the fridge right now and was wondering how long it will stay for? Will this it keep well if put in the freezer? If so, how long? Thanks again for the great recipe.. I was shocked at how well the a-maze-n pellet smoker worked.
That pellet smoker rocks doesn’t it?!?! As for freezing, if you vacuum seal the salmon it should keep 6 months in freezer.
It seriously does! After 8 hours it still had almost 1/4 of the pellets still left in there. Was tempted to run to the store to grab a block of Cheddar lol. Awesome, thanks for the quick reply!
Love this recipe Chris, thank you! Occassionally my pellets will catch fire and then the salmon cooks a bit instead of smokes. My intuition is that open vents would more likely facilitate it catching fire, but I know that’s what you advise. Any thoughts on best way to manage the pellets catching fire?
I leave the top and bottom vents closed almost all the way to avoid the pellets catching fire. In addition, use that pellet maze if you are not as that helps the pellets burn in an even and snake like fashion.
I have exactly the same issue. Not only you will need to keep those vents almost completely closed, but also place your BGE front away from direct wind. I realized that when they start burning the BGE is not smoking anymore (obviously) and then is very difficult to turn the fire off and back to a normal slow smoke. In some cases i had to completely restart the procedure.
Silly question: i normally use this procedure (the best IMO) but this time i have an issue, no time to dry the salmon overnight in the fridge. Is there any salmon preservation issues reducing the time to a couple of hours? i know the smoke won’ t adhere as good as it would when it’s a bit dry….but this time i just poorly calculated the times. Many thanks.
Not an issue at all.
It was 50° out when I smoked. I couldn’t for the life of me keep the Green egg under 90°. I’m using a medium green egg and a 12 in hexagonal smoking tube. Any advice for keeping the smoker temperature down?
Put a pan of ice in the chamber and that should help cool it down. So have the pellet smoker at the bottom as described, then add conveggtor, pan of ice, grill grate, then salmon.
Quick question….just did my 48hr cure and while Im rinsing it off, I noticed the salmon filet is markedly firmer than before I started. Is this normal/expected? Thanks!
Yes that is to be expected. As the salt works its way in the the flesh the moisture is being pulled out. When the two meet (salt, moisture) the process stops and locks in creating the pellicle needed for smoke adhesion. So, when you reach that state the fish will feel firmer. Nice job!
Awesome, thanks!! Appreciate that! Feeling a little better…shes been in the fridge overnight and will get smoked later today or tomorrow!