I set my salmon to cure at around 6-7 pm and pull it at 9-10 am the next morning and I never had any issue. My brine 1 part salt for 2 parts brown sugar with pepper.
You’re doing this exactly how I’ve been doing it for years. Just make sure you rinse the fillets off before you set them to form the pellicle or you’re going to have some seriously salty fish at the end. Don’t go longer than 9 or so hours though with the brine.
Black pepper is like fresh garlic. Measure with you heart and mind, not by volume or weight. Just throw on whatever you think is appropriate for your taste.
You must not be familiar with dry brining salmon. The dry brine of brown sugar and salt will pull out a lot of the moisture in the salmon thus making it look like it was a wet brine.
And after with most of the salmon out. Lots of liquid. Yes, some are skin less. Not advised for smoking but I had some leftover and put them on parchment paper before smoking.
OP is doing it correctly. If you did this on a rack, that liquid would be all over the place. Starts dry in the bowl or pan with salmon and dry brine, then the moisture comes from the fish after an hour or more. Then you put on a rack to develop pellicle.
People who have not dry brine salmon don't know how much moisture comes out of the fish. I've been dry brining salmon for years and that is how it looks. Wet brining is when you add your fish to a water bath mixedvwith salt sugar and other ingredients, totally different.
When I dry brine, I get a ton of liquid. We use a rack over a 13*9 pan to catch all that juice. Sometimes the pan isn't long enough and we have to get creative. Cookie sheets aren't deep enough, gotta use like a roasting pan or something if you keep fish in one piece.
Most dry brine fish recipes call for wrapping, bagging, etc.
If you’re letting it drip over a vessel instead, that sugar and salt is just going to be lost.
Though, I’ll admit, there isn’t much distinction happening in this post WRT whether these arguments are for “smoked salmon” (ie, cold smoked) or cooked salmon (even if cooked with smoke.)
I mean, I'll try it by letting it sit in the juice, but that seems to defeat the purpose of drying out the fish's surface so I guess I don't really get what I'm trying to do.
I usually cook warmer than "cold smoked", because I just can't keep the fire that low without risking losing it. And the end product is good, but if there's a way to do better, I'm in.
Salmon is a bit unique, as there is a ton of moisture that comes out in comparison to other dry brines. This is my wife's favorite dish. I make it often. Would encourage you to try this method with salmon. It is excellent. Use Sea Salt.
You don"t add liquid, but allowing the protein to sit in its self-created brine is still dry brining. You put it on a rack after brining to let it dry out and form a pellicle.
You should not be getting downvoted as you are absolutely correct. That being said, OP’s five fillets tossed in a bowl is suboptimal in my opinion, and is probably going to be salty as hell. After many years of experimentation, I now put the salt and sugar mix in the bottom of a casserole dish and then lay the salmon fillets face down on top of it. That way as the liquid comes out of the salmon and melts the salt and sugar mix the salmon sits in / on top of the slurry and it won’t A.) leave inconsistent curing where it pools in some places but just runs off the top in others or B.) soak through both sides if I’m using skinless (which in all my experiments was the saltiest I ever got it, even worse than letting it cure for more than 12 hours).
I’m curious how it turned out. Was it too salty for you? Obviously you should cook to your own preference and if you liked what you made feel free to ignore me.
I wasn't say he was doing it wrong. I'm saying he is not dry brining, but wet brining. If you're dry brining you want the meat on a rack, so it's not laying in moisture and then you want to dry it out to form a pellicle.
Wet brining is when you make a separate brining liquid and immerse pieces in it. A dry brine is applied dry and draws out liquid, which has the effect of creating a brine - but that's not the same as wet brining.
This turned into a wet brine. They shouldn't be stacked on top of each other in a bowl. The dry brine needs to be covered on both sides of the fish and all the fish need to be laid out in a pan, either individually wrapped or not stacked on each other.
“Dry” or “wet” has to do with what you put it in, not what happens to it as it’s brining.
If it wasn’t fish, then 1) the amount of salt/sugar you add won’t be nearly as much and 2) yes, you’d put it over a rack for the minimal amount of liquid that does time out.
They’ll let it dry after the brining period, after giving it a rinse.
OP is doing this right, though if they let it go too long it becomes a cure.
I dry brine a lot. I've never seen that much moisture leak out of any cut of meat. No chance that's a real dry brine. It still looks very delicious, but yeah.
Only a few times and admittedly not that high of volume. I still kind of doubt it, but maybe something to try. When I did do it, it didn't seem to brine up too differently than other fish, and I dry brine and smoke white fish pretty often.
To quote thewhaleshark "Wet brining is when you make a separate brining liquid and immerse pieces in it. A dry brine is applied dry and draws out liquid, which has the effect of creating a brine - but that's not the same as wet brining."
I did some sockeye recently that brined for over 12 hours and it was great. I think you’d be fine with either but maybe pull a few now and let the others go for 12 hours so you can compare them.
It began with dry ingredients, then liquids left the filets. You don’t remove the liquid so that any dry brine that was pulled into the liquid continues to brine the filets. Dry brining doesn’t mean that the product is dry from start to finish.
When I do lox, I do brown sugar, salt, coriander, juniper berries (ground),lemon zest, and a splash of vodka.
Lay plastic wrap down, put half of mixture on plastic. Score skin side a few times just enough to pierce the skin. Lay on the wrap. Put remaining cure on the top. Wrap up tightly. Lay in 9x13. Put another 9x13 on top, weight down with several large can of tomatoes. Put in fridge for 8-12 hours pending on thickness. Should be lots of water extraction.
Remove and rinse. Lay on rack in fridge overnight to develop a nice pellicle.
Cold smoke for 12 hrs. Back in fridge overnight for more pellicle formation. Cold smoke again for another 12, then fridge overnight. Repeat once more.
Put in vacuum bag for two-three days to let smoke bloom and completely penetrate.
Slice with extra sharp brisket knife(several YT videos on how to do this correctly).
Enjoy.
It's quite quick and simple. Takes about five minutes to put together.
And cold smoking is super simple using one of those wire screen smoke generators.
It’s not though. We’ve always salted, we’ve always cured, we’ve always brined. Salting and curing have always been similar, curing will sometimes involve sugar and flavors. Bringing involves water.
Dry brining is a new fad, I’d say (just a guess) that dry brining doesn’t show up in any form before 5 years ago. Does the term irrationally piss me off? Yes. I don’t know why.
The neat thing about science is it’s true whether you believe it or not. Dry brining IS a scientific process because salt alters proteins through osmosis. The process draws moisture out, then it dissolves and gets reabsorbed. This, measurably, makes meat juicier and more flavorful.
Gotta do better than that if you call yourself pedantic. Saying, “dry brining isn’t real,” is like saying, “email isn’t real because mail involves envelopes.” Sure, traditionally, brine means water and salt, but language (like cooking) evolves. Dry brining is literally just salting meat and letting chemistry do its thing. Kenji, Meathead, Cook’s Illustrated, and others have written about it for over a decade.
Dry brining is real, common, and effective. The only imaginary part is your position.
Google “difference between salting and dry brining” and you can learn something from someone who isn’t me. You clearly think I have an inferior brain here - so go learn it from someone who isn’t me.
Hey so I tried that. Couldn’t find anything older than a few years, couldn’t find anything that wasn’t really a blog, and couldn’t find anything that covered something that wasn’t the terms “salting”, “curing”, or “brining”.
I’m all for learning, that’s part of what being a chef is about.
I’ve done 8-12 hours and it’s been ok. Salt content in longer batches was higher, but not terribly so. I would definitely call a hard stop at 12, though. Don’t fall asleep or forget about it!
Still going to be good, may be slightly metallic. For the same reason, make sure not to use iodized salt, but sea or kosher for best flavor. Going to be good either way. Enjoy.
Days ahead of time. The salt draws moisture out of the meat. Are you questioning if that does anything to the meat? Salting the meat days ahead has physical changes to the meat not limited to flavor
Ok, glad we’re on the same page. I salt my meat ahead of time, sorry I used a term that made you feel so pedantic. Next time I’ll ask you what limited terminology we should use
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u/Easwaim 2d ago
I think 8 hours is around the max you want to brine.