Alexa it looks good to me. Elery often smokes salmon, mine are usually filets because it's fish we caught ourselves. He's also smoked some steelhead, but that's a lot stronger.

My favorite is with a maple/soy glaze, but it's all good.

We've never done shrimp, it's not readily available here in a lot of sizes, we're pretty much stuck with frozen packages in just a few sizes, the biggest I usually see is 30-40 per pound.

Annie

Alexa the recipe sounds good to me ingredients wise but I'm not comfortable with the amount of brine time. Seems to me that's a long time and I'd be concerned about the flesh breaking down.

The recipe I use calls for 20 minutes of brining but it has a lot more citrus in it. The brining is followed by two hours of air drying.

I'm just curious, since shrimp cooks so quickly, would it really benefit from smoking? Wouldn't it turn to rubber before it really got any smoke flavor? Really curious. I wish I knew the ins/outs of smoking meats.

Enjoy your meal Alexa!

Sharon, my recipe says to brine for 2 - 8 hours, and the cold smoked stuff is brined for 3 days or so. I've brined mine overnight but I'm mor elikely to make a brine in the morning and then elery smokes the salmon in the afternoon, but it's still several hours.

Annie

Exactly right Rob333. Shrimp has to be cold smoked or it will be cooked before it's smoked. About thirty minutes in the brine, and then about an hour in the smoker. I like to finish cooking them on the grill, but they are delicous if you poach in butter / white wine / lemon juice mixture.

Annie, are you hot or cold smoking your Salmon?

Steve

Thanks for the info.... we are leaning towards making it later this week or maybe even next week. It is brutally hot here (mid 90's the next few days) so I'm not sure how much time I want to spend outside cooking/smoking anyway. I feel a crock pot bbq pork fest coming LOLOLOL!

A

skip, elery hot smokes it, although he really likes the little electric smoker it's really hard to keep the temps down far enough for cold smoking.

Annie

Steve - you mentioned that you put shrimp in the smoker for an hour... the recipe I posted only puts the salmon in the smoker for 30 minutes. I thought a 30 min smoke would be plenty for U10's..... you think they should go longer?

A

I'm assuming that hour smoke for shrimp would be in a cold smoke set up.

A little dryer vent pipe/material, whatever you call it, a box of any sort and some pop rivets and duct tape and you can make any smoker into a cold smoker.

All you want is to get the smoke away from the heat source and then have it linger but still move over your fish or oysters or...

So where your regular smoker vent is you will need a "something" onto which you clamp some aluminum dryer vent, venting it upwards to a ox, even a cardboard box, as long as it can be modified to hold the rack(s).

However, if you set out to cold smoke be aware that you will be using unsafe temperatures for long periods of time...this is where the pink salts and cures become real important. Don't do it on a whim.

When hot smoking salmon, that pellicle is real important, the skin that forms on the salmon when you air dry it after curing it. Dry your fish/seafood/shellfish before putting it into the smoker, please.

I can't deal with recipes as long and complex as that one. What are all those ingredients for ????

metaxa says, "When hot smoking salmon, that pellicle is real important, the skin that forms on the salmon when you air dry it after curing it. Dry your fish/seafood/shellfish before putting it into the smoker, please." That is important. Dozens of flavor ingredients will not take the place of simple, correct method.

I and my SIL have smoked salmon and bluefish many times with great results. Both of these have a good amount of fat, which is the key to successful smoked fish.

I have not smoked shrimp and have never eaten smoked shrimp. I'm skeptical about it because, so far as I know, it has little fat. But I could be wrong.

Jim

I don't know anything about smoking seafood, but I did buy some smoked shrimp a couple of months ago. I got it in Old Town Sacramento, a place right on the waterfront. The salmon we got there was good but the problem with the shrimp was not so much the texture as the saltiness. It was inedible. My guess is that because the shrimp are so much smaller than a hunk of salmon (and much leaner), they absorbed way too much of the brine. I was surprised because I figured the owner of the place would have noticed the saltiness. But apparently either he didn't notice or his customers never commented. We didn't get a chance to comment either because we didn't taste the shrimp until we got back home.

Jim - I'm really sorry that a recipe that has 2 kinds of sugar, salt, water and lemon zest is beyond you. The rest of the ingredients are for the salad and dressing that are served on the side.

Shambo, I wonder if the excess saltiness is from the brine they used?

Metaxa, I have a Brinkman smoker with an off-set smoker box. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind by suggesting the smoke should move across the food but away from the heat source? I dont feel like going out to take pictures right now, but I'm sure you are familiar with the set up.... I would appreciate any advice you can offer for smoking fish on it, I've only done ribs, chicken, pork shoulder and duck before.

Thanks again!

Alexa

Alexa,

Thanks for pointing that out. If I were more patient I could have figured it out eventually. I just saw that long list of ingredients and gave up immediately.

Good luck with the smoked fish. It's not hard to do and it's very good.

Jim

I have a Brinkman smoker with an off-set smoker box. Is that the sort of thing you had in mind by suggesting the smoke should move across the food but away from the heat source?

No, that unit is a hot smoker (despite being able to run pretty cool).

Cold smoking is done with smoke, period, with a temp around 90° .

Picture a pit and a bit up hill from the pit is your smoke house. 10 feet or so. If you don't have a hill just elevate your smoking house...so long as you run the smoke uphill.

This smoke house can be an actual shed, hut, house or it can be a cardboard box. I have a buddy who does it using two barrels. One for the fire and smoke generation, one to hang or rack product in, joined by a pipe. About 15 feet of pipe in his case.

You light your fire in the pit and clamp it down, now the smoke runs through a pipe (I use diesel truck exhaust pipe, cheap at the junkyard...well cheap enough) to the hut, house, box, whatever you have your product in. By the time the smoke gets to the house it has cooled considerably and you truly are preserving with smoke. Most of the time we are cooking with smoke flavour added.

Now, before everyone runs out and starts cold smoking, you have to be able to control and maintain a fire or you will soot up your smoke. Food smoking smoke should be white, with a light gray to it when you add a chunk. Black or dark gray smoke is bad. You have to be able to maintain a steady draft but not too strong or you will make your product bitter. You have to be very certain about your cure or you will die. Certainly you can poop funny for days.

I've (mostly) got it down but I still mess up sometimes (too often, really) and ruin a batch. Its an art and it is based on trial and error, not recipes. Tell the truth I only cold smoke oysters, cheeses and salt with any regularity. Once a year we set up to do a big load of semi cured sausages but that is a real weekend of work. We try and do a years worth at that time because it is a real pain to get it done properly.

I hot smoke my salmon, if I want a cold smoke type salmon I make gravlax.

Or you can do like the restaurants and tournament guys do...buy a cold smoke unit from a supply house.

They are automatic, run on little briquettes of wood, basically are fool proof.

I do it the old fashioned way because its my hobby.

Apparently I'm not allowed to race motorcycles, cars and Jeeps any more and chasing cocktail waitresses is also on some list somewhere. So I sit in my back yard and make good food. Everyone is happy. Including the one who keeps that list.

The problem with smoking shrimp is that they are too hard to keep lit.

ROFL Fred!!!!!

bigfred, thanks for the laugh!