Salmon candy, Second attempt at Candy

About 35 pounds of salmon being prepared to turn into candy by tomorrow night. Next week batch 2. I will be shortening the brine time to 90 minutes as 180 minutes was too salty for my tastes. Equal amounts of sea salt and brown sugar for the brine. It will sit in my fridge to setup a pelican for overnight.I will smoke them with Cherry and Apple wood in my Bradley original, for 5 hours pulling them out every hour to glaze with maple syrup.

Pic 1

Pic 2

Can’t wait to hear how you make out Arnie.
Bet it’s delicious.

Cheers

Hi Arnie

Good luck.

Take a look at my recipe in this section.

I use a "dry cure" with a lot less salt and then it is thoroughly washed off before smoking.

I've never had a issue with "too salty"

Ralph













R

The brine mix 50/50 Brown sugar and sea salt mixed.

Salmon strips in the brine for 90 minutes. Then rinsed lightly.

After rinsed pat dry with a paper towel and put in fridge uncovered in the smoker racks skin down....this will set up a whitish haze called a pelicat and the smoke will adhere to that.....do not miss this step.

Right now I have 4 racks in the fridge.......mid morning tomorrow they will go in the smoker.

More pics to follow.

Thanks Chevy will let you know here how it goes.

Arnie

The recipe I am using is very similar to yours Ralph....I looked at it last year and found one online as well and this is a cross between yours and it.

Last time I had them in the salt 3 hrs so it was too salty for my liking.....this time 90 minutes and will see how that is......and they were rinsed both times.

If still too salty will use brown sugar 2 parts and salt one part till it comes out mmmmm.

It was good last time except the too salty.

Thx Ralph.

Arnie

The strips spent the night in my bar fridge overnight to set up what is called a pelicat.....do not skip this step because this what the smoke adheres to.

In the smoker they go at about 1030 this morning.

A cup of maple syrup and a paint brush looks after the glazing every hour for 4 hours out of the 5 in the smoker or depending on how much smoke you want.

How they looked after a couple of hours.

The finished product after 5 hours of smoking with one blank hour of no smoke. I used 4 pucks of each Apple Cherry and Alder. They will now sit and cool before wrapping. The next batch I do I will rotate the racks for more even smoking as the higher the rack gets less smoke.......rotating will even that out.

I wrapped pieces singaly in Saran Wrap and then put them in a freezer bag so I can take out what I need when I want it. Back in the freezer they go.

Chevy you will be happy to know that this batch was oh so tasty and the Coho was the best, very delicate tender meat......the salt was perfect at 1.5 hours in the brine.The next batch the smoke will be better when I rotate the racks.......working towards perfection.

SD.....Ralph thank you for even getting me started on this delicious way to prepare salmon/Trout.......it was your recipe that caught my interest in the first place due to eating some of your candy at a meet and greet in Innisfil three years ago. I think your recipe has inspired many smokers.....lol.....THANK YOU.

Arnie