Salmon Smoking Weekend

What does one do with 35 pounds of refrozen salmon? Smoke it!

Dave and I arrived Friday at our friend Alex’s in Waldport Oregon with salmon ready to defrost. After an incredible seafood gumbo, the guys settled on a brine recipe they cooked & cooled for the next morning. This was an all weekend event that extended into the early Sunday morning hours. The weather was fierce Saturday with high winds and loads of rain. An excellent day to spend indoors.

Here are photos starting from Saturday morning fish prep that included brine, drying, flavoring & loading of the smoker box.

Cleaning up salmon fillets & cutting into manageable size & brine in ziploc bags.

Nice fillets Alex!

George attended the weekend event as well, thanks to Alex opening his home to a big fur ball!

Alex’s crow friends helped clean up the waste. The windy weather kept them from taking care of the whole pile.

Fillets drying with seasonings about 2 hrs prior to loading the smoker. We flavored them with either ginger, paprika or cumin. Dave had fun filling the smoker box with apple wood chips. Seven hours of wait until batch #1 was done.

The high winds (40-50 mph gusting) blew off his neighbors smoke stack cover. Alex kindly covered it with plastic & duct tape. Shannon & Mike showed up to help. Shannon entertained herself with her “nook” during down time.

Batch #1 out of the smoker & #2 getting ready to load up.

Once the meat had cooled, it was put through the vaccume seal production line. The last batch was sealed around 3 am. Shannon & I didn’t attend that one. After bagging, it all went into the freezer. DONE!

Thanks to Dave, Alex, Mike & Bill (the smoke box creator extraordinaire!) for getting the job done.

BTW, the salmon turned out great!