This week Kroger Foods had a special on pink salmon @ 3.99/lb. So at that price I thought I'd give smoking it a shot.
First thing I did was to make up a dry-brine. 4C of dark brown sugar, 1C of kosher salt, and 15 cloves of minced garlic. This was thoroughly mixed, then put aside for a few hours to blend flavors. I had six med. to med. lg. filets, so I used a 9x13 pyrex pan to brine in. Next, I put a layer of dry-brine in bottom of pan, placed 4 filets on that and coated them real good with dry-brine, and placed the last two filets atop others and gave another healthy dose of dry-brine, covered pan, and into fridge overnight. Sorry I didn't take a pic of how it looked before refrigerating. First thing this morning I took out the salmon, the dry-brine had pulled so much moisture out of filets they looked like they were swimming in teriyaki sauce. At this point I rinsed the filets under cold water and put aside to air dry for 3 hours at room temp. This gave me time to tidy up the Boone. All back together, started it up set at 165F, and put the salmon in. Had no traditional alder so I used maple pellets. I'll post back when they are finished----should take 6 to 7 hrs. Time for a motorcycle ride!
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