Smoking Salmon

I live in a small town in the Rocky Mountains, many miles away from the nearest ocean. Needless to say, the options for buying fresh fish are limited. For the past two years, we have purchased fresh Alaskan salmon from Jake’s Alaskan Seafood Co. Jake is a local guy that fishes in Alaska every summer and brings his fish back to the Rocky Mountains.
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The fish that he brings back is absolutely amazing. As a result of purchasing bulk salmon two years in a row, we currently have quite a lot of salmon. We have been grilling it and it is delicious. But we were looking for other ways to cook the fish.

A few weeks ago, we decided to dust off our charcoal smoker and try to smoke some of Jake’s salmon. We do not have a fancy Traeger; we smoke our fish the old-fashioned way with charcoal.

We brined the salmon in 1 quart of cool water, 1/3 cup of kosher salt, and 1 cup of brown sugar. We submerged the salmon in the brine for at least 2 hours. Then, we removed the salmon and thoroughly dried it with paper towels. We placed the salmon on a rack to allow it to dry a bit more.

Then, my husband started the charcoal smoker with a huge propane torch. (I guess we are a bit impatient.) He filled a bowl inside the smoker with cedar kindling that we had cut from our property and added water. Within a few minutes, the smoker was ready for the salmon.
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We used soy sauce, honey, and red chile to create a marinade for the salmon. We placed the salmon onto the wire racks and basted it with the marinade. We then closed the lid to allow the smoking to begin. We kept the front door of the smoker slightly ajar to ensure the charcoal did not go out. 

Every hour, we opened the lid and basted the salmon. After 2-3 hours, we removed the salmon and it was perfect. It is smoky and delicious.

It was so good that we had to vacuum seal half of it to ensure that we did not eat it all in a day.
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Smoking the salmon has opened up a whole new way for us to enjoy Jake’s catch. Living in the mountains, you have to be creative in how you source your food (like buying in bulk from a local fisherman) and how you prepare it so you do not tire of the same food.