I've always wanted to do this and starting simple.
50/50 brown sugar plus insta cure #2.
Scaled the salmon cut the belly meat ofr to cure separately.
Coated in salt and sugar.
Pan has plastic wrap on top and bottom.
Plastic cutting board on top and the kettle with my corned beef on top for a weight.

I went out and checked the fish I had the weights on.
It feels really firm and there is lots of liquid in the pan.

You are truly a Renaissance man.

Looked at several videos and they are all over the map.
Some were flat out stupid and I would consider a little on the dangerous side health wise.
Two hours isn't long enough to salt cure anything.
I know enough about this sort of thing to know the basics and what to do.
But I have never done it with fish.
I looked this morning I looked and the belly meat was good enough for me.
It had been under the weight for 24 hours.
I taste tested a piece thinking it was going to be horrible.
All fishy and nasty.
To my surprise I loved it.
Not fishy at all.
What I don't like are bagles.
Can't stand the things and they give me horrible indigestion.
Well any who I sliced the lox from the skin and put it on toast with nothing but cream cheese.
No other things to adulterat the flavor.
Here it is and its already gone.
Yes it's raw, the only way I'll ever eat raw fish.

I love gravlax and make it sometimes myself. We eat it on sour rye bread with sliced red onions and dill or with a sauce made from mustard, sugar, vinegar and dill.

I use just normal table salt or coarse sea salt, sugar and spices to cure the fish. Special curing salt is not needed for salmon. Christmas time we eat it a lot and I make it week before by freezing serving size pieces right after salting and move them to refrigerator to thaw and cure day before serving. It should be consumed in couple of days, so freezing allows us to have fresh gravlax through the holidays.

Sari

My SIL is a chef, and she made gravlax for us one Christmas. Fabulous treat.

I'm always squeamish when it comes to commercial fish and any meat from a store.
I basically assume everything is tainted one way or another.
Especially chicken and ground meat.
So I added the wee amount of the curing salt for an extra wall of protection since I am going to eat it raw.
I might cold smoke some but only lightly and for a short time.
In other words at around 70F or lower if possible.
Not cooked.
Onions are in order for my next tasting.

I understand exactly what you mean. When curing fish I always keep sniffing it carefully when I start to prepare it.. The stores here sell a lot of Norwegian farmed salmon and we eat it quite often. Sometimes there is also fresh wild salmon from the Baltic Sea, but that is a rare treat.

Worth,
add some beet juice to the mixture. will turn the salmon a beautiful color

Old Chef

Worth,

When do you graduate up to hakarl?

Tormato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 2:48 am Worth,

When do you graduate up to hakarl?

He should first try some surströmming.

Appreciate time in the salt is 50 hours.
Got home and before even going inside I took the fish out and rinsed it off.
Pat dried with paper towels and washed out pan.
Put back in meat experiment refrigerator for another 24 hours to dry and form a pellicle on the surface.
Decided to cold smoke all of it.
Now some would argue it isn't lox if it's smoked.
I don't want to go there since research tells me lox lax or something there of is a word for salmon.

No idea if this is going to work or not.
Makeshift smoking snake.
It is loaded with pecan smoking pellets and some oak charcoal and sticks on top.
Seems to be working so far.
Nice 63F outside and temperature will drop to the 40s overnight.
At least it won't get any hotter inside the chamber.

"In your socks with a pound of lox."


Somebody had to say it...

Stayed up past bedtime to see the progress of the smoke snake.
At a little under halfway it was smoking for 5 hours.
So I went to bed.
The temperature was in the 50'sF.
Got up this morning and the first thing I did was go out and check the fish.
The smoke snake was completely burned out.
So it smoked for at least 8 hours.
The temperature was in the low 40'sF.
The fish never got warm and stayed cold throughout the smoking process.
Tossed it in the refrigerator and had coffee.
Brought it in and cut it up into 3 pieces.
This is what it looks like.
Smells heavenly.

Old chef wrote: ↑Sun Mar 20, 2022 10:35 pm Worth,
add some beet juice to the mixture. will turn the salmon a beautiful color

Old Chef

I'll probably get another one this Thursday after work and start a 24 to 36 hour process.
This will allow me to start smoking on Saturday evening.
It's probably the last chance the night temperatures will be low enough to cold smoke this year.
The ingredients will have beet root or juice involved.
The sugar will be white sugar.
Can I just use beets and or juice from a can?
Or do I need to buy raw beets and shred them into the salt sugar mixture.
I always have canned beets at home.
All opinions highly respected.

Rubbed some cure on first then grated a 1 pound raw beet and mixed it in with equal parts white sugar and salt.
1 pound each.
Wrapped in cling wrap.
The belly and tail same thing no wrap, beet just put on top.
Dry pack on both.
It's in the refrigerator with the dreaded weight on it.
We'll see what happens tomorrow.

This is insane.
No trick photography, it really is that color from the beet.

Picked this contraption up on the way home from work today.
It telescopes out to 12 inches.
In this 15% humidity it lasted for 3 hours on the 7 inch setting.
Now it's on the 12 inch setting.
Great for smoking with no heat.

I think I smoked the salmon for around 5 hours last night under the heavy smoke of the smoke tube using pecan pellets.
I took it out and put it under cover in the refrigerator until today.
Tried several pieces from different sections including the middle.
Not as salty in the middle and it melts in your mouth.
Nice but not overly smoked.
No bitterness from smoke.
I can think of a thousand things to do with it.
One of which is to take to work for others to try.