[santacore]

Do any AC'ers have a great recipe for smoking salmon? I'm getting a bunch of fresh fish and thought I'd fire up my Vision Kamdo. Any recipes or suggestions would be appreciated.

[barrows]

My heritage is Scandinavian, and in our family we have a tradidion of making Gravlox, which is actually cured Salmon.  I find Gravlox to be superior to smoking, if you have really good fish.  Do you have North Atlantic Salmon?  If so, I would recommend trying the Gravlox method.  I am sure a quick Google search will find the recipe, it is quite simple, and Gravlox never gets dried out the way smoking sometimes can.

[santacore]

I'll check out the Gravlax, that could be fun too. Yes, the fish is wild caught fresh frozen Alaskan salmon.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I've been a member of a BBQ site for a few years now. Those folks have taught me a new way to cook food, to say the least.
Here's a link to the first time I smoked a salmon, complete with pictures.
There's also some "sides" in there, in case yo're interested.
I've done salmon a couple times since then, but honestly, I haven't been able to improve on that first endevour. 

It takes some time, some patience, and an entire rack of your refrigerator for a couple days, but the results impressed the family.

Hope that helps.
Bob

EDIT: On page 2, post number 22 is some information you might find informative.

[Rob Babcock]

Bob gives good advice, but I don't really use a 'recipe' per se.  I mix up a dry rub of about 1 c brown sugar and 1/3-1/2 cup salt.  Cake it one the salmon inside a ziplock bag bag and let it sit overnight (basically a dry brine). Then rinse off the mix, lightly salt and smoke it.  I run my smoker about 140 or so for about 45 minutes to an hour.

[BobM]

I get my Atlantic salmon fresh off the boat at the docks on Long Island, NY. fresh caught fish is SO very superior to the farm raised store bough salmon. We have the guys in the back room simply cut off the head and de-bone it, and scrape off the scales leaving the skin on.

When I get it home I rub some olive oil on the skin side and lightly salt it with Kosher salt. I also lightly put some kosher salt on the meat side and grind a wee bit of black pepper on there as well. I place it skin side down on some tin foil for about 1/2 hour, then into the smoker it goes.

I like to use a 1/2 and 1/2 mix of Hickory and some kind of fruit wood (peach/cherry/apple/etc). I do put water in the pan to keep it moist and then smoke it for about 1.5 hours at 225-250. Nothing fancy - I find any real "rub" just overwhelmes the taste of the fish and the smoke, and it is plenty good enough by itself.

Enjoy,
Bob
 

[liddown]

This has been my go to for a few years... If you can find alder wood, that is the perfect salmon wood...

Smoking Brine (smoked fish to die for)

2 Quarts of water
1 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of apple juice
½ cup of non-iodized salt
1 cup of soy sauce
¾ level teaspoon of fresh black pepper
¼ teaspoon of onion salt
¼ teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of Lawry's seasoning salt
4-5 heavy glurps of Tabasco sauce

Brine fish for 6-8 hours (thin chunks or average filets) and 10-12 hours or maybe even more for whole fish while in the refrigerator. Remove the fish from the brine and place on your smoking racks with air circulating around them. You want the fish to glaze over if at all possible.

This brine makes enough to cure 12-15 three pound trout or salmon.

Always smoke the fillets skin side down and leave adequate room between fish pieces to allow air to circulate in the smoker.

Suggest smoking with a sweet apple wood or Alder wood for best flavor (no bark). Do not over-smoke and the smoking should actually be done in the first hour or less. Set your smoker at 200 degrees and try 2 hours smoking time initially so that the internal temperature of the fish reaches a minimum of 160 degrees for 30 minutes to kill off any nasty parasites.

Wash off the brine, and let the fish sit to glaze over...