After many years of smoking venison and salmon with a multitude of marinades and liquid brines, I have come to depend on this dry brine because it always works for me.
This is really simple 1/2 cup of salt and 1 pound brown sugar, with a buck strong in rut I use 1/2C salt to 2C of brown sugar for the first brine.
Put a layer of the salt and sugar mix in your brine container add a layer of meat then cover jerky strips with 1/8 tp a 1/4 inch of sugar salmon being thicker use 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the sugar mix.
I like to let this sit in the cold either in the fridge or if weather is cool 40's then I just set it on a shelf out on the porch. If the top layer is not covered with juice the next morning, give everything a good stirring.
After 48 hrs drain off the brine, the meat or fish will be noticably smaller in size and darker colored at this point. Amazing the water that this pulls out of the meat, this is a good way to firm up smoked salmon and ensure you don't get soft mushy smoked salmon.
After meat has been drained, rinse it off and pat dry with towels or paper towels, this time we add flavor to our 1/2C salt and 1 pound of brown sugar, I use coarse ground black papper and dehydrated garlic flakes to flavor mine. Add the meat and salt in layers just like the first time and let sit in the cold another 24 to 48 hrrs.
You can just put it on the rack at this point, if it has a lot of the sugar still stuck to it I usually give a quick rinse. If I want it extra spicy, I garlic powder and pepper after I have racked the meat.
At this point use your favorite smoker, I use the Big Chief myself.
A silver salmon I smoked this summer:
I have a batch of jerky going right now, I will be changing out the first brine later this evening and will add a couple pictures.