Cold smoked salmon

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Walking by internet I found this funny device for cold smoking. What a thing! Genius lies in simplicity, really. The manufacturer guarantees 8 non-stop hours of cold smoking with the consumption of 100 gr of sawdust.

I was pleased to get the device for only 35 Euros, plus a bag of sawdust as a bonus. And I forgot to mention the manufacturer is Ukraine.

For the experiment I chose my favorite fish – salmon. In case the experiment failed I took just couple of kilos of salmon fillet (later I suffered reproaching myself why I didn’t buy more).

The classic recipe of salting:

Coarse salt – 1 part

Brown sugar – ½ part

Ground pepper – fistful approx.

The dill is sprinkled over the fish right before smoking.

The fish was put on a “pillow” of the ready mixture and covered by a thick 2-3 mm layer of the same mixture. Then it went to the fridge for 8-9 hours. After that I had to rinse the product with water, place it on an airing grid and put again into the fridge for 3-4 hours so that it could dry and a thin “glassy” crust appeared.

For the smoking process I used Weber BBQ, however you can use any hard-paper box, there shouldn’t be any fire inside. I spread the sawdust inside the smoker, smoothed it out, rammed by fingers and started a smoldering process using a candle included in pack.

The proper BBQ thermometer didn’t show temperature less than 50C, that is why I put a street thermometer inside the BBQ and it showed 16C. Considering it was 12C outside, it was just what I needed.

The sausages on the photo are bought in supermarket, and I decided to cook them at the same time without any previous treatment. The manufacturer did not cheat. The first part of the product was smoldering 7,5 hours. Later I rammed the sawdust denser and the second part was smoldering 9 hours. The third one needed almost 10 hours. The important thing is to calculate the time so that you could put next sawdust before going to sleep not to wake up at night. The total time of smoking was 26 hours. Then I opened the lid and let the product “have a rest” couple of hours in the open air. This should be done.

I’ve never tasted anything better. And I’ve tried lots of different smoked fish in Norway. Most probably, manufacturers do use additives to extend the best before date. I’m not worried about the fact that my products are able to be kept refrigerated maximum 10 days. In fact, those two kilos cooked were successfully eaten out till the next morning.

The sausages’ destiny was nearly the same. At first I planned to hang them for 10 days in the fridge to get a cured version as a result. At the last moment I put them into steamer for 20 minutes with an intention to hang them later for a week so that they could dry a bit. But my sun looked at me with those big sad eyes full of desperate wish to eat them out right that moment, I gave in without a struggle and we both ate the sausages. Everybody knows the truth: the best fish is sausage!