smokin....

Relax in southern comfort on the east bank of the Mississippi. You're just around the corner from Beale Street and Sun Records. Watch the ducks, throw back a few and tell us what's on your mind.
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JR.
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Re: smokin....

Post by JR. »

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The top picture is results of today's experiment... 6-7 hours at 105-110' (mostly) Nice bark (dark colored pellicle from smoke exposure), and reduced albumin.

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This bottom picture is from an earlier attempt smoked for less hours at higher temperature.. notice all the albumin (coagulated protein).

Slowly making progress... still way too much work for more than once every 3 weeks.

The comparison between the two brands was not very definitive... The walmart looks better the other brand tastes pretty much the same, and neither leaked more or less albumin, hypothetical symptom from too much stpp.

Slowly getting a handle on this smoking thing... may change the brine to beer only for first day (while defrosting), then add salt for only the last few hours.

For fancy meal presentation a sweet glaze could be added after smoking, but not for my use as an ingredient inside a vegetable dish.

JR
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Re: smokin....

Post by Gold »

Looking much better. The Jewish "Nova Scotia Lox" is oily and juicy. The smoked salmon I've had from the Pacific NW had more of a dried texture. Both delicious.

I'm excited to do open fire cooking. I bought a Lodge Sportsman Grill. It's the nicest small grill I've seen. You can load fuel while cooking. The cast iron grill top is made so small bits of food won't fall through. You can also adjust air flow for temperature control.

I like watching "A Taste of History" with Walter Staib, He does open fire cooking inside. I've been paying attention to his techniques. Since cast iron retains heat so well a lot of it is heating the pan to the temperature you want and then taking it off the fire to start cooking.

We also have a tiny wood stove for heating that has a cooktop.
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JR.
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Re: smokin....

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hard to imagine where the 3 weeks went since last batch.

The cheaper walmart looks better, (there's only two walmart fillets in there but they are easy to pick out). I/m not sure if the skinless degraded because it was skinned, or had too much secret sauce (STPP). I kind of like the less work from pre-skinned, but i like the way the texture and color of the walmart looks so much better.

Smoking is still a lot of work (i like to set it and forget it for a few hours). It's hard to keep temperature from overshooting. The wood chips smoking (burning slowly) throw off enough heat to bump it up tens of degrees over 109' threshold. I could mange temperature easier without wood chips but then there would be no smoke... :oops: The extra insulation required to reach 180' is counterproductive down at 109' when it's not much cooler outside. :roll:

I think I'll try not smoking the next batch (3 weeks from now), just throw the salmon into the crock pot and slow cook it.

I'm also cutting back to only 2#... 3# frozen is a bunch more than 3# canned.

It may be easier to manage temperature smoking during colder months, but I like the idea of less work if crock pot slow cooking the salmon turns out Ok. It will surely still be better than using canned.

JR
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Re: not smokin....

Post by JR. »

I decided to experiment with how much water comes from slow cooking chicken (boneless, skinless, thighs). The package label suggests up to 15% added saline. :roll:

3.5# of chicken generated just shy of one pound of gravy (28%) with only a thin layer of fat on top of mostly water. According to FDA chicken should lose maybe 6-7% water weight during cooking. My pound of water didn't even count the drainage left in the bottom of the package i discarded. They cleverly add an absorbent bottom liner so you don't notice how much liquid is sloshing around.

FWIW I notice a bunch of water comes from cooking beef and pork, so maybe they're plumping everything. or my slow crock pot cooker is good at extracting water from meat.

JR.
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Re: smokin....

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Another 3 weeks have passed and I just cooked up another 3-week batch of salmon yesterday. Since the whole smoking effort was so much work I decided to try just slow cooking the frozen salmon in my slow cooker.

I gave it 2 1/2 hours at low heat, and not surprising there was a bunch of albumin driven off. I collected the gravy into my fat separator and found zero fat in the gravy coming off the cooked fish. I scraped the skin off and crumbled up the salmon before adding in the vegetables to cook.

I used the mostly water I collected from the fish to cook a cup of brown rice (I cook beans and rice separately from the slow cooker so i can rinse the beans, and better control the rice). I might be able to cook the rice in the slow cooker but since I already cook the beans separately, cooking the rice with gravy from the meat just works out nicely.

The 2nd source of frozen salmon already had the skin removed but the integrity of the fillets looked worse so I stayed with the skin on fillets (from walmart) It isn't that hard to peel off the skin after cooking. 3# seemed like too much, 2# is marginal not enough.

Overall I am pleased with the result but next time I will start with lower temperature than "low". There is a "simmer" and "warm" setting even lower temp than "low". They advise against cooking food at lower than low, but even "warm" is higher temp than the 110' where albumin forms. Albumin which has the texture and nutrition of egg white is not worth throwing away, but keeping more of it inside the salmon seems better yet.

BTW i keep the frozen salmon wrapped in some bubble wrap while inside my freezer so the automatic defrost doesn't thaw the outer layer of fish flesh. Important if I go back to 3# next time as I will bank 1# in the freezer for 3 weeks (salmon comes in 2# packages.

On track for my continuous improvement. 8-)

JR
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Re: smokin....

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Another 3 weeks have passed and time for my latest salmon (lunch) meal experiment... My slow cooker has two levels cooler than LOW, simmer and warm. Warm (130' IIRC) is still hotter than the 110' where salmon expels albumin, but my latest refinement is to place the frozen salmon fillets into the slow cooker at night before I retire and run overnight on Warm setting.

This morning as expected the fish was cooked (mostly) with fluids and albumin expelled but captured in the cooker. I drained off the almost 1 pint of liquid (to use cooking the rice), and scraped the skin off 2# of the 3# of salmon fillets. I left the albumin in to mix in with the vegetables (it's healthy coagulated protein... looks like egg white). Last week when I shopped for this batch I ended up buying the stores last 2# of frozen salmon. This week they had a new batch so I picked up another 2# to finish out the 3# I needed. 2# last time was marginal not enough. The previous bag of salmon has a 2017 date code, the new stuff has 2020 date code but even better now it is skinless. :D So even less work for me. The skinless fillets are also thicker, from larger fish, and look good. The earlier batch of (non-walmart) skinless salmon I tested in my smoker looked worse than the walmart salmon with skin on or off.

I generally cook beans separately and rice separately. I like to rinse the beans before adding to the mix, and rice doesn't always cook properly mixed in with the food uncooked. After mixing in the vegetables I will cook it today another 4 1/2 hours at Low (which is hotter than the 150' required to kill Listeria). I am cooking the rice separately in the liquid I drained off this morning.

Next time, 3 weeks from now, with completely skinless salmon, I may try adding uncooked rice to the frozen salmon to slow cook over night. I still need to rethink how I cook the beans but this is getting better and easier. If I mix in the beans uncooked that saves one more step and one less dirty cooking pan.

If cooking the beans stains my "stainless" steel pan, I kind of like rinsing them, but many people cook beans in with other foods. I have another 3 weeks to think about that. 8-)

JR

[edit taste test results in... not just good... GREAT.... /edit]
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