Fishing in British Columbia > The Fish Kitchen
Dry Brine Questions
fishtruck:
Having tried a dry brine for the very first time this past week, results were somewhat mixed. Read everything I could find as well as watching many Youtube videos on the subject.
Followed the 1 cup coarse salt to 4 cups brown sugar recipe. After 5 hours, turned the fish to ensure even contact with brine. Brined for a total of 14 hrs in fridge over night, rinsed and using fan dried for additional 3 hrs.
After Pellicles were formed satisfactorily, placed into little chief where I smoked it for 6 hrs ( small pieces of about 3" by 1" pieces) with 2 pans of mixed maple and hickory chips
First off, too much time as product was too dry and too firm.
Secondly, way too salty.
Questions, how much should I decrease the salt content, 3/4 cup? or less than that.
Did I overdid the time of brining?
Should I start looking to see whether it is done after 4 hrs?
Thanks for any and all tips, much appreciated
DanL:
When I started years ago, I also found the 1:4 salt:sugar to be a bit salty. You can go to 1:6 or even 1:8. Try some small batches before you commit.
Dry brines really draw the water out of the meat, so thinner pieces will lose relatively more water than thick pieces for a given brine time. You could brine thinner pieces for shorter time, and monitor for firmness, though I have not tried that.
Also put the thinnest pieces on the top racks, where they are furthest from the heat
stsfisher:
I always do a dry brine, and use an approx. 4-1 mixture.
Not sure how you rinsed, but I would suggest making sure you don't skimp on the rinsing cycle, and ensure you pat dry after rinsing. In the beginning I too had very salty brines, rinsing for longer than you think might be required will not hurt. My strips are approx, 2" wide and the length of the salmons fillet, vertically.
Temperature outside and inside your box, along with thickness of your salmon will vary your smoking time as you probably already know. I know I check every pan, at min and sometimes check more frequently to see how they are coming along. I have found smoking times to be anywhere from 3hours to sometimes 12 hours.
Another thing I like to do is give each piece a maple sugar/ grenadine / Whiskey glaze for approx. 30min at the end. Careful here as you can easily burn the the sugar glaze if you keep it in too long.
fishtruck:
Thanks to the both of you for your kind reply.
I'll start by doing what DanL said about salt to sugar ratio. Then I'll follow what STS said about rinsing thoroughly and patting well.
Going to try again soon, nothing else to do nowadays
stsfisher:
oops, second post
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