Hot-Smoked Salmon

The night before, pop some small chunks of wood in water to soak. Then make your brine – this breaks down proteins in the salmon.

Take the water, and add about half the salt, stir until dissolved. Keep adding salt in 25g increments and stirring until dissolved until the potato (I bet you were wondering where that came into it) floats in the solution. Make sure to keep track of how much salt you used because you will then add the same amount of sugar. The amounts given above are guidelines.

Pop your salmon in the brine, then go to bed!

The next day, 2 tasks at once:

1. Take the salmon out of the brine, sit it in front of a fan to dry.

2. Light your BBQ coals (you want enough coals to cover half of your coal space, leaving the other half without coals). When they’re glowing, pop your soaked wood atop the hot coals, and put a couple of open heat-proof containers of water in the other (empty) half of your coal space. Put in an oven thermometer. Pop the lid on, open the vents and leave it until the temperature reads over 150F. If it gets too hot, i.e. above 250F, close up the vents.

3. Once it hits 150F pop the (almost certainly dry by now) salmon on the grill. You want the salmon to be over the water baths (not over the coals). Put the BBQ lid on, with the lid vent open. You want the lid vent to be over the salmon, not over the coals, so the smoke is drawn over the salmon as it escapes through the lid vent.

Keep an eye on the temperature, the cooler the better, down to 150F. Over 250F there’s a risk the salmon may dry out, but if you want it to go a bit quicker you can have the temperature higher. Like so many things, though, slower is better!

If it starts getting too cold, open up the vents a bit, too hot close them a bit.

Once the temperature is pretty stable, go have a lemonade! Or a coffee, or a margarita. Whatever floats your boat!

Check it every 45 minutes. Once the salmon looks like the picture, it’s done! With experimentation, you can get this exactly how you like it.

This is great served on some toasted bread, blinis, in salad, with pasta… You name it!