Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Smoked Salmon Recipe

Pellicle the smoked fish equivalent to BBQ bark ? Tell this old fart about it, please.

Denny
The pellicle is a 'skin' of protein that forms on the flesh. It allows better and more even adherence of the smoke. The fish has been brined and rinsed.

Just out of view in my picture, there is a fan blowing air over, under, and around the fish on the rack. The process is to leave it like that until it's no longer wet. The surface gets tacky to dry.

To add a little detail... if the surface is wet it will absorb more smoke and especially the worst parts of the smoke. You can easily get too much smoke. It also limits the rate of drying because warmer fish allows water in the flesh to migrate to the surface and evaporate. The pellicle stops that.

Also, when the fish gets to 140F a bunch of water is released from the fish and if it gets to the surface, proteins in it denature. Easy access to the surface speeds that up. Ugly white globs are proof of that. They are proof the fish is dry and mealy in texture. Tremendous work on smoking science has been done at the fisheries college in Kodiak.

Thanks.

Ironbender, Sitka deer can you talk more about smoker temperatures and knowing when to pull the smoked fish out?
I have an electric smoker and can set temps.
Thanks

I'll let SD or pak handle that. I use my easy bake oven and don't know actual temp. I can tell qualitatively, but check the fish and pull when at the doneness I like.

Ironbender, that batch looks great and not over smoked. I love the color.

I agree!
So you are not looking for a certain temperature but dryness or texture you like?

Wow. Thanks Pete. High praise coming from the master!

And, done in my easy bake oven! Amazing.

All this talk of guys wetting their feet getting into smoking fish and to celebrate the success of the OP by following the perfect instructions for smoked fish, I took some salmon out of the freezer for supper. Paired it with some of my smoked cheese and other goodies.

Internal temp of the fish should not exceed 140F and the smoker temp can go higher, but you start walking a fine line between a little drying and too much.

The gobs of white proteins on the surface indicate a lot of water was lost. Even if the water (from excess heat) was retained it would still have left the flesh and created a mealy texture. The last photo from the attention whore shows what it looks like.

The fish should be firm, but not hard when ready. Take a piece out and try it. If it is too soft and raw looking in the middle give it 10 seconds in the microwave and eat it up! Ironbender figured out how to do it in an Easy Bake, so it can't be that hard!

Take a good close up of the texture of your fish on a broken surface, please. The comparison of nice smooth surfaces and the mealy mess should be telling...

So easy a KP Guy can do it.

You dont use any pink salt?

I found some wild caught pink type fish today.

No pink salt!

Hot smoking (kippering) is really just a cooking method. It is NOT a curing method.

I've always used a simple dry brine, with good results, but for a batch of reds earlier this year I thought about Sitka and his recommendation for wet brine.

I would say that the wet brine was more consistent, easier to control, and obviously faster. I'll stick with the wet brine. Thanks Sitka.

Jason

No problem, glad to help.

Try your favorite jerky recipe. You might be surprised. Barry