Dry brine for smoked salmon or jerky

[stonecarver]

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.

[jaxenro]

Making me hungry just looking at it

[StumblyRhino]

Looks great! You don't develop a pellicle before heading into the smoker?  I've always considered this a critical step, but your results look fine as far as smoke adhesion.

[stonecarver]

StumblyRhino, I had to do a search on pellicle-

The pellicle is used for better smoke adhesion.  If the surface of the fish is tacky or slightly sticky to the touch, the smoke will adhere to the fish better resulting in a better tasting product.

Interesting, as the pellicle is something I will try with my winter time cold smoking. Which I smoke for 16 + hours, I have always thought that more smoke should have been adhering to the salmon.

I had worked in three butcher / custom cutting shops that had smoke houses in the late 70's and early 80's. One of the shops the owner even won competitions with many of his smoked meats, I never heard the word pellicle.

The smoked salmon in the picture was a summer time batch and on a very warm for here in SE AK almost 80°day, since it was hot smoked it really oiled up and sealed it, a firm smoked easy to flake apart smoked salmon.

Jerky, I always hot smoke, in cold weather I stick the box on the smoker for jerky, dry alder shavings make a good hot bed of coals as it burns up.

[stonecarver]

This batch of jerky has been in the first brine 48 hrs, look at the color, it was bright red when I put it in the brine. I am always amazed by how much juice / waters the dry brine pulls out of the meat.

In the bowl is 2 hind quarters of venison 8 cups of brown sugar and a cup of salt. If the rut game flavor was really strong, I would have used another cup of salt for first brine. Then back to a pound of brown sugar to a half of a cup of salt for the base of the second brine.
,




Now the meat has changed color, I see I need to trim off some more fat.

He was a fat two point (on each side) from last years rut.

When cleaning up the bowl from the first brine, there is commonly a sugar paste or slurry. I rinse that off outside with a hose, I'd rather not take any chance of it plugging the drain pipes.

Here is a couple pictures of the start of the second brine:

[willie]

stonecarver
I have found that if you use jusssst enough brine to cover, then getting a nice pelicle on salmon is easy.
1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 gal. water,  for 2 hours............ we weigh racks before and after, and look for 20% weight loss during smoking/drying

need to go trolling for a king soon, this thread is making me hungry 

[BowEd]

That looks tasty for sure.Thanks for showing your well tried an true processes.Doing a quarter of a big deer here would be great here.Not like dried beef but maybe even better.

[JW_Halverson]

Never thought of using weight loss to indicate when to stop the smoking process.  But it does make sense! I have a pile of rainbow trout needing to spend some time in the smoke sauna, and I might have to pay some attention to this.  Thanks Willie.

[Marc St Louis]

It's been many years since I did some smoking.  Never smoked Fish but did Duck, Goose, Venison, Pork, Chicken and maybe a few more I don't remember.  From what I remember there are 3 ways to smoke, dependent on the smoke temperature.  Cold smoke, did that once and only once, hot smoke and cook smoke.   I found that for some meats a brine was the only way to go.

[jimmi the sammi]

Used your recipe on a batch of trout. They turned out the best I have ever done!  Thanks so much.     I will definitely be using it again on other meats.