Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Smoking & Pressure Canning Kings

Got into 6 hatchery kings the last couple of days. These are pretty big fish, averaging 20 lbs. In the past (only done this once), I've tried lightly smoking them and then pressure canned them. They definately had too intense of a smoke flavor. Using a Bradley smoker with the auto bisquit feed. Any tips?

Nice fish! Not to be a smart azz, but try even less smoke. I'll also sugest roasing a head of garlic and adding a few cloves to a few cans.

To me properly done smoked canned salmon is the most amazing sweet oily salmony goodness!!!

Smartass!!

I definately will smoke it less. I can load biscuits so it can only advance one at a time. Maybe just two bisquits is about right?

Follow up question. The fillets will be well over 1" thick in the meaty parts. Is is better to cut strips or just do chunks? I want to do chunks as I can get more volume/poundage per smoke session.

I've heard of guys not even smoking, but putting a few drops of liquid smoke in the jars before canning. Never tried this and have my doubts on quality/flavor.

I'd do strips to get more consistent thickness, say the belly is 1/2" thick, I'd cut the belly strips 1" wide and the thick parts 1/2" wide. I hear you about getting the biggest load in the smoker per session but sometimes you just gotta go with the smaller load to get the product you want.

I've never used liquid smoke, somethings I'm just not willing to take a short cut on. Not to mention I like to use different woods to smoke, alder, birch and hickory and blends thereof for different flavors. I have no idea what type of wood is used in liquid smoke or what flavor you'd get with it.

liquid smoke has such a bad aftertaste to me, I haven't had a bottle of it in likely 30 years.

No clue what a biscuit is, we smoke game here, with green woods.

You certainly can oversmoke, I think 458 has it right, just keep backing off till you figure it out.

I've tried the liquid smoke in canned salmon and I wasn't a fan of it, you have to be real careful how much you use.

I've got a Bradley Smoke Generator on my smoker and it works great plus I like how you can control the amount of smoke it uses by adding or subtracting the discs. I'd go with 1-2 discs depending on what kind you are using.

What type of wood are the disks made of? I like to use apple or cherry when I smoke salmon, hickory or mesquite leaves it too smoky for my tastes.

Bradley makes cherry wood disks, but I bought alder as they were on sale.

Alder shouldn't over smoke it too quickly. I think you are probably on the right track with only one disk or two.

Alder is my very favorite for salmon.

With smoking, then canning, salmon the idea is to not pull too much moisture out of the fish.

You are on the right track realizing liquid smoke is schit...

After brining (90 minutes in ice cold brine made with 1 cup non-iodized salt and 2 cups brown sugar per gallon) rinse quickly in cold water and place on racks to form the pellicle. When that is done smoke on the lowest possible heat for no more than two hours and possibly just an hour.

If you want to get crazy weigh a piece form the middle of the rack of average size. When it has lost 5% of its weight or slightly more, pull the fish from the smoker and put in jars. I have gone to retort bags which are exactly like MRE bags and vacuum sealed, but jars are fine...

Proceed like you know how to from everything else you have canned. It is pretty easy at that point.

The smoking is for flavor and to drag a little moisture from the fish. It will get ALL the way through the fish in the canning process.

Do not worry about the size of the chunks as it will not matter after canning. An assortment of sizes makes packing jars easier.

With the retort bags I use the weight in each bag is critical and I weigh every load for every bag. In a couple hundred bags I have yet to have a failure with a bag... though others cannot seem to get a single bag right...

Art, do you use the 8 oz or 16 oz retort bags? I'm looking at taking the chamber sealer plunge so figure retort canning is the next step.

I use both, and 4 ouncers. the one thing I have found that makes the most difference is the use of a pressure gauge rather than a rattler. The rattler releases pressure too quickly at the end and bags rupture.

Using the gauge and monitoring progress carefully has resulted in zero bag failures after doing a couple hundred. it is also more efficient as you can cram a lot more product in the cooker with the bags.

I'm at a loss as to why this is necessary. I understand why (and I do) for a hard smoke. You want it to skin over so the fish oil/juices don't weep. If I'm only smoking for 1 - 1.5 hours and it's going to be a wet-packed product anyway, why bother?

Because if you do not the smoke will stick to the fish much more and you will oversmoke too quickly. It also sets up the texture and helps the fish keep its shape while cooking.

Why not try smoking for 30 minute increments to see how much is enough for your taste?

Start a batch in the smoker and take out a jar-full every 30 min until fish has smoked for say, 3 hours?

Two hours is plenty of smoke. It is harder to undersmoke than oversmoke it... and he is only looking to smoke for an hour or so...

OK. Not done it here, but heard from those that have how the smoke flavor/aroma intensifies when PC'd. Thought a little test worthwhile.

When I do this, I'll just call you first.

I don't think I've ever had an under smoked fish, but I've definately have over smoked fish. Something to keep in mind.

And this thread is killing me, because when this is done right



it's amazing! That and I haven't dropped a hook or net on salmon yet this season

Well, part of the problem is you are smoking them like white folk. You can't use a smoker like a Bradley or Little Chief and get a light smoke. They are designed to cook as well as smoke.

You need an open smokehouse with lots of space and ventilation for cold smoking.

I have a 4x4x10 smokehouse that I use for both smoking and drying. My smoke generation is done with a #10 can with holes around the bottom of it I punched with an 8d nail. I have a flat steel cover that i use to damper the smoke and regulate the burn.

The can sits on the gravel floor and I open all the vents and louvers on the smokehouse and may even crack the door a tad if there's no wind.

I use fruitwood chips in the can, either apple or cherry. Once I get the chips lit on the bottom with a torch, I cover the can and leave only a 1/4" opening.

But I also smoke mine for a day or more and they hang from 3-5 days depending on weather since I'm kippering most of the time.

For what you are doing, I would only put the smoke on them for a couple hours before taking them down and stuffing them in jars. I would also suggest using cottonwood since you probably have access to it. Use only the white wood, no bark and no heartwood.

When I can kings or any other salmon for just canned salmon, I don't put any smoke on them at all. The only thing that goes into the jar with a fish is a commercial salt pellet.

Fatty kings are the simplest fish to dry and smoke. And cold smoking is certainly the way to do it.

Even if you don’t plan to dry them down, cutting them into strips and letting them dry for a day or so - long enough to harden/gloss over and then smoking in cool smoke for 2-3 hours will be plenty. Smoking fresh/wet fish is part of the problem with smoking them. Fish smoked when it is still wet on the surface seems to pick up bitter flavors quite easily. And how the canned product will be used is a factor.

We don’t can much king salmon except for the ends and belly parts that are simply too fat to make good dry strips. We can those ‘scraps’ and use them later, often with nothing but cream cheese mixed with them, oil and all. It makes a nice ‘horse-ovary’ when applied to Triscuits. Of course you could add some fresh dill, onion, or whatever you like also. But these scraps get the full hard smoke that the strips got so they’re pretty strong, but the cream cheese tames it down quite a bit.

There's my problem!

That's so racist . . .

I'm pretty basic on my smoker. A plywood box with a barbecue racks, a propane burner and a cast iron skillet full of cherry chips. I do have a thermometer and vents in it. I try to run about 140 degrees when I smoke and if we are canning the smoked salmon, I usually go 1.5-2 hours on the smoke. It always comes out good.

When I filet the salmon I always cut the belly strip off first and then lay off the filets. I use the back portion of the filet for smoking along with the bellies. I add a little of the smoked belly meat to each jar because of the high oil content. An open jar never seems to last long around our house.

Hey, I learned first hand from the middle-Yukon and Aleut folks who've had about 10k years so to perfect things and I haven't found a reason to try and improve them.

I still don't know how to use the commercial smokers.

Maybe a slight display of an koyukon superiority complex, but not racist.

Nice smokehouse Klik.