Green Egg Smoked Salmon

Several years ago Ilya and I had a gas grill and an electric smoker and thought we enjoyed grilling and smoking very much.  However, after we bought us a Green Egg, we finally understood what real grilling and smoking is all about. Even pizza in it cooks within 2 minutes and tastes like the one from a real wood oven.

For smoking, we also got a “BBQ Guru”, a fan and a computer controller that allows a grill to maintain a certain temperature with almost no effort on your side. With its help, we successfully smoked pork ribs, chicken, beef brisket, mussels and a variety of fish. Today, I’ll share our recipe of smoked salmon.

It took us some time and a number of trials to figure out how to get a perfectly smoked salmon - nicely smoky, but with a smoke not overpowering salmon’s natural flavor; dense, but juicy and moist; lightly browned, but not dry. I believe today we can say, quite proudly, that we’ve reached the desired result. Here’s how it goes.

Choose a fatty piece of salmon, the fattier the better, so it will not dry out during smoking (Pacific wild king or Atlantic farm raised salmon are the best). I take a whole side of salmon and then cut it crosswise into 2-2.5 inch wide pieces and debone with small pliers, if needed.

Sprinkle the top of each piece with equal amounts of coarse salt and brown sugar, not too much in order not to over-season it. Wrap in plastic and place skin side up in a container, side by side. Put some not too heavy weight in top and refrigerate for about 10-12 hours. I usually do it overnight.

When the time is up, unwrap the salmon pieces and rinse under cold water to remove the residual salt and sugar. Dry well with paper towels and lay side by side skin side down. Let air-dry uncovered for several hours or until the surface becomes sticky and slightly glossy. If the temperature in your kitchen is too warm, place the fish under a fan or transfer it to the garage, basement or refrigerator (though for air drying purposes refrigeration is not the best choice because of too cold and too still air).

Soak two handfuls of wood chips (we prefer maple, though olive and apple and other kinds will work as well) in cold water for about 1 -1.5 hours.

Place half the chips in a smoker on top of charcoal and cover with one more layer of charcoal. We prefer to use smaller chunks of charcoal on top of the chips because they burn faster and thus get to the bottom layer of chips faster.

Set up the BBQ guru fan and set it at 160F. Don’t switch it on yet. Start the grill. For this, we use SureStart firelighting squares.

Meanwhile, place each salmon fillet on a small piece of foil so it will not stick to the grill rack.

When the starter has died down and the charcoal has started burning, place the rest of the wood chips on top, then insert a grill rack and arrange the salmon on it. Close the grill and start the fan.

Smoke salmon about 1.5 hour or until it gets cooked through and slightly golden brown all over. Make sure that your grill really gives smoke most of the time or the salmon will simply be slowly roasted rather than smoked.

For this we set temperature to about 160 F and when the smoke subsides we reset the temperature to 165, then 170 and so forth until it reaches 190-200 F. Every time you set the temperature higher, the fan starts working to wake up the charcoal and wood chips and the smoke resumes. In our experience, this method reaches the target temperature of 190 F more slowly and produces more smoke than if we set the thermometer right to 190 F from the beginning.

When the salmon is done, remove it from the smoker and let rest on the counter for about half hour. Then wrap each piece in plastic and refrigerate for at least one day before eating. This prolonged rest in the refrigerator or maturing, if you wish, significantly improves the taste of smoked salmon as well as some other smoked products like mussels.

Right after smoking, salmon taste quite good, but more like a slowly roasted fish with smoky smell that seem to exist separately from the fish flavor. However, in a couple of days in the fridge all the flavors get blended together and the texture becomes more dense, but stays tender, flaky and juicy.

 

To sum up, here are the major steps of salmon smoking process:

1. Take fatty salmon so it will not dry out during smoking (Pacific wild king salmon or Atlantic farm raised salmon).
2. Rub the salmon with salt and sugar rub and put under press overnight.
3. The next day, air-dry for several hours until the surface becomes sticky and slightly glossy.
4. Soak wood chips in water about 1 hour prior to smoking.
5. Arrange them in layers with charcoal.
6. Start the grill and when the charcoal start burning, add more chips and place the salmon in.
7. Set the fan on 160 and switch it on.
8. Slow smoke the salmon for about 1.5 hours, gradually rising the temperature on the BBQ Guru up to 190-200.
9. Let the salmon rest in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours before eating.