Source
r/AskCulinary•
MazeRed

Smoking a cure?

Recently got into curing salmon, and now I want to cure them cold smoke that salmon. Problem is that I can’t figure out a way to cold smoke since its regularly +80 out now and I only have an offset. Can’t keep the temperature low enough.

So my question is; will the flavor transfer if I just throw in a pan of salt/sugar mix into a smoker, cook my brisket or whatever, then finish my cure mix with dill/citrus/whatever and then cure my salmon? Or does not enough flavor transfer?

Posted Apr 2, 2023, 8:04 AM UTC

17
RebelWithoutAClue•

I'm having trouble understanding your preparation.

Are you attempting to cure and then cold smoke both a brisket and and a salmon with a separate pan of cure also placed into the smoker?

If this is the case I do not see that you will get any considerable amount of cure evaporating and condensing on your meat.

I have had some success keeping temps down by placing big slabs of brine ice in an upright electric smoker before. I've only had junky electric smokers that look more like mini fridges in that they have a vertical array of racks. I've frozen slabs of strong salt brine ice in big plastic Tupperware like tubs. I've put slabs on a lower rack with a big tray underneath to catch the melt (periodically emptied) to cool incoming smoke that smokes racks of meat above the slab of ice.

Maybe you can get just enough temp reduction with a slab of brine ice placed directly in front of the inlet. Additional cooling might be provided by laying the meat on a wire rack sitting just on top of another slab of brine ice.

You definitely want to keep that salt water from pooling in your smoker though. It's super corrosive, so wash it out after your smoke run.

1
TooManyDraculas•

He's attempting to smoke the cure while/after smoking a brisket to flavor that cure.

Then cure salmon with it in lieu of smoking it. Since he can't keep the smoker cool enough to cold smoke it.

1
RebelWithoutAClue•

Oh that makes sense.

1
pharmtechgurl•

https://heygrillhey.com/cold-smoked-salmon/

https://barbecuebible.com/recipe/cold-smoked-salmon/

Here are two links for cold smoked salmon. You really can't use your smoker with charcoal to do salmon as it's not really possible to keep the temperature that low.

The best is to invest in a cold smoker (Cabellas or Amazon); they are truly worth the investment. You can make beef jerky, smoked cheese, smoked sausage, etc. I have done all of these things and they are delicious.

1
TooManyDraculas•

You could smoke the cure, and get a decent amount of smoke flavor on it. Similar to smoked salt.

But on curing the salmon, you probably wouldn't get much smoke flavor involved. Cured salmon like lox and gravlax typically have the cure rinsed off after the fish is cured. Where smoked this is done before smoking.

One of the go tos on cold smoking in barbecue pits is using a pellet tube rather the fire box. The tubes usually put in the body of the smoker as far from what you're smoking as possible. You can put it in the fire box, but it may not run hot enough to draft properly.

Cold smoking has to be below 100f. But the preferred range is something like 60-86f. You can use foil pans of ice to lower the temp inside the smoker.

1
RebelWithoutAClue•

+1 on the smoke tube and ice pan. You can also put salt on the ice to get more cooling out of it. Coarse rock salt for roads is a cheap source of salt for ice cooling.

I think that a small computer fan could be used to drive smoke through a system that is running cold. Ideally you'd put it where it'd blow air into the firebox, with closed up vents instead of sucking air at the outlet of the flue. Driving air into the firebox would save the fan from having to get fouled up eating smoke.

1
TooManyDraculas•

I don't know that a small fan would have enough oomph to push air through the fire box into the body.

And rigging up a computer fan is a bit much. I've mostly seen people use small, battery operated personal fans like you might see from the dollar store. Parked in the main area of the smoker. Basically cheap and sacrificial.

Unless people have a fan system like a pit guru or bellows or something.

The complication here is that if the airflow runs through the pellet tube it can make it run hot and dirty. As well as burn it down faster. Those tubes seem to max out at around 6 hours, which is short for cold smoking fish.

1