Salmon Curing Amounts

[sotv]

My trusted recipe for Gin and Juniper Berries Salmon has disappeared off the net. AAgh

What is the recommended amount of sugar (I prefer light brown) and Kosher salt needed per 500g of salmon? I can remember the rest for the cucumber, gin, juniper, berries and peppercorns amounts

When I last did it also, I left it for about 4 days, I think,  is this correct or is less best?

Thanks

[Wade]

Were you looking to produce a traditional smoked salmon or a Gravadlax?

There are quite a few variations on Gin (and tonic) cured salmon but without knowing which one you used it is impossible to know how to reproduce it exactly.

Here is one I have used before that worked well.

1 kg side of salmon, trimmed
20 black peppercorns
30 coriander seeds
20 juniper berries
2 limes, zested
2 lemons, zested
1 bunch of dill
375g of flaky sea salt
50ml of gin
100g of sugar

Toast the spices and crush. Blitz the zest, spices, dill and 100g of the flaky sea salt to a coarse consistency in a food processor and transfer to a bowl. Fold through the remaining salt, sugar and gin
Generously coat the salmon with the cure and leave for 10 hours

I found the recipe at Great British Chefs and there are some other fun accompaniments with the recipe that go with the salmon.

Here is a generalised method that can be used that you can adapt to suit your own taste.

Combine 100 g of fine cooking salt (no iodine) with 50 g fine sugar (caster or light brown sugar). The sugar helps to balance the salt flavour.
Add your spices to the mix - lightly crushed peppercorns, juniper berries, lemon/lime zest, crushed coriander (adds an orangy flavour)
For this amount of mix add 100 ml of Gin. A standard flavour gin in better. Avoid using the highly flavoured gins (like Ophir).

Place half the mix into the bottom of a glass or ceramic dish and add the fish skin side down. Cover with the remaining mix.
Cover with clingfilm and chill overnight, turning after about 10 hours and spoon over any liquid.
After about 12 hours total curing time remove the salmon from the cure, rinse under cold running water and pat dry with paper towel.
Wrap in clingfilm and keep chilled until required.

 

[sotv]

Thanks Wade the second one is close to what I have done in the past, so I will give that a try today.  Hopefully get it cured and cold smoked by the early part of next week, before the snow and cold weather set in.

Are the salt and sugar amounts based on a 1kg fillet? and for cold smoking would an apple and oak mix of wood dust be suitable for these curing flavours or too strong and just stick to say apple dust, for the cold smoking part.

 

 

[Wade]

Yes these will work with a 1 Kg fillet, although the amount that it takes to cover the surfaces of the fish will depend on the thickness of the fillet and the size of the dish. If you have a big/thick fillet or a large bowl it would not hurt to increase the cure amount by 50%

Apple and/or Oak will be fine but be careful that you do not over smoke or you will start to lose the Gin flavour. Before you decide to smoke try tasting it first and see whether you think it needs smoking. Alternatively smoke half and leave the other half unsmoked.

[sotv]

Mixed up the first one today and applied it to the side of salmon. Produces a lot of cure easily covered the whole side salmon in over 1cm of cure. The finished cure is very green in colour. Hopefully impart some of that juniper, dill, citrus and gin flavours into it.

Going to leave it for 12-18 hours before washing it all off. Will have a taste of it first to see if it would benefit from smoking or leaving as is.

[Justin]

Bravo, pictures?

[sotv]

It has been in the fridge a couple of hours so already started to drain the moisture out of the salmon

[Justin]

interesting.

[Justin]

Tip Wade gave me it put on wired rack with tray beneath but make the rack and salmon sit at a slope, assuming you can not hang it, but yours looks good mate, keep posting especially on how salty you want it or how much you wash it after cure, i am not keen on salt so I  rinse mine under a slower flow cold tap alot ( to minimise damage to the salmon by water flow) then pat dry  with kitchen paper and put back in fridge to dry for 3 days more before smoking.  I have also done smoked cure stuff which is nice to but sweeter than smoked . 

 

I need to do more as run out, off to Lidl I go tomorrow.  Of course there is loads of salmon nearer Christmas, not best quality but good enough to smoke. Lidl have just stocked up on lots of frozen Christmas type stuff so makes sense  salmon deal there.  how much did it cost per kilo?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Justin

[sotv]

£9.99 Kg, Really well filleted pieces of salmon, nice colour and couldn't find 1 pin bone in it. This is a Lidl when its gone its gone offer this week and was in the chilled cabinet. They did have some frozen ones, but the the fresh was better value and looked more appealing to me anyway. Was an impulse buy.

Seems a lot of salt but used Maldon Sea Salt Flakes, which impart a sweeter flavour and meant to be more of a  finishing salt.

Interesting article someone has done on the different types of salt and quantities of each compared Salt Comparison

[Justin]

Excellent price

[Wade]

5 hours ago, sotv said:

Seems a lot of salt but used Maldon Sea Salt Flakes, which impart a sweeter flavour and meant to be more of a  finishing salt.

When it comes to the salmon curing... salt is salt is salt. I have tried different types of salt and there is no descernable difference in the end product. When I was at Foremans salmon smokery in London they confirmed the same. They just used standard non-iodised salt (e.g. cooking salt). It is inexpensive and has another advantage of having a similar grain density to granulated sugar so it gives a more uniform mix.

There is nothing wrong with using Maldon flakes for curing but you will be paying a premium with no additional benefits.

[sotv]

I was following the recipe you posted above. So stuck with those ingredients. I do actually have a very sensitive pallet (I test flavours for Inawera, because of it. I am pretty good at detecting sweetness, sourness, bitterness and pungent levels along with acidity levels and ability to identify different flavours in multiple mixes) and did the same for Cadbury's back in the day. 

The problem for me with my palate though is pungent Spicy foods, they are too strong and overbearing for my tongue in the vast majority of cases. So where I struggle with pungent spices say pepper or chilli even just a relatively small amount can spoil a meal for me, whereas other people can't even taste it and look at me daft, if I comment on how strong it is.

This is why I make my own rubs, because the manufactured ones just don't suit my palate unfortunately.

It is hard to explain the difference if you can't sense it. But for me table salt has a way saltier taste than sea salt which for my palate has a very subtle sweetness to the salty taste in its raw form. Once it is washed off and removed from the salmon though I wouldn't be able to identify which type of salt was used though. 

There does seem a difference though in quantities of salt needed though between the different types from what I was reading. As 350g of Iodised Salt is different to 350g of Maldon Sea Flakes and the fish would be even saltier if I had substituted the same amount of  iodised salt for the amount of Sea Salt in this recipe and this is  something I will be looking at in recipes, which call for a specific type of salt and I have something different in my cupboard. Small amounts for seasoning won't make any difference, but large quantities it will be worth me doing some more investigation for myself, to see if there is actually a difference in types vs quantities in general.

[Wade]

There will certainly be a slight difference in flavour between the salts when tasted "neat" as the different mix of impurities will create a unique flavour profile for each type. Where there is the biggest difference though is when you use volume measures in recipes instead of weights. The same weights of each type of salt will give you pretty much the same amount of salt and therefore the same end saltiness (with minor variations). Whereas when using volumes (e.g. tsp or Tbs) the different crystal shapes of the various salt types leave different amount of air space in between them resulting in different amounts of salt being in the measure. A Tbs of powdered salt or even corse grain sea salt will likely contain more actual salt than a Tbs of salt flakes.

[sotv]

Have given it a 15 minute wash in cold water under the tap and dried it off, the finished flavours are really nice, not overpowering, still taste the salmon with gin, citrus, juniper and dill coming through and a just a tiny hint  of saltiness, perfect for my taste.. Will leave in the fridge for 24 hours to form a pellicule then smoke it for 12 hours using silver birch.

I was wary of 350g of salt to cure 1kg of salmon and turning the salmon a greeny pink colour 😀, as not used that much before, but on initial tasting after washing it off, it really hasn't made the finished product, spoilt in anyway and hasn't affected the colour of the salmon in anyway. Just a little tearing in the middle, but that just means some bits to enjoy whilst slicing 

Will see if it benefits from smoke for future reference, or if just keep unsmoked. But definitely bookmarked this recipe as a favourite

Thanks for the recipe

[Justin]

Well done, this thread is excellent reference point for advanced smoked salmon.

I will give this a try

 

[Raptor72]

Is kosher salt ok to use ? I’m assuming yes . I have the diamond crystal stuff . Non iodised . I’m hoping to test driver the Holy smoker when it stops raining 

Edited October 8, 2019 by Raptor72

[Justin]

Ware advised me to grind the salt to a power consistency so it spreads all over the Salmon. Makes sense, after all the salt  turns into a brine pretty quickly so ...notwithstanding what SOTV said but my palate is not that fine

[Raptor72]

Ah ok I get it ! Yeah my palate is dull in comparison too 

[sotv]

Everybody's palate is different, some are more receptive to different tastes than others. Don't worry about it, just work to what suits your own tastebuds.

I use the exact same salt as you normally, for all my rubs and cures. I just wanted to follow this recipe as described. If I use Diamond Crystal Kosher next time for this recipe, I am going to follow the salt comparison guide I posted earlier in thread to compare the 2. But will only use 0.7 of the amount i.e. 265g (rounded up) of Kosher salt against the 375g of Maldon Sea Salt Flakes i used this time. To compare the guys result in the link, to see how it works between the 2. It may make no difference, or too little or too much salt taste.. I am interested to find out. Even 265g of Diamond Crystal is more than I have used before and not the normal 50/50 salt/sugar mix I have used previously. So although initial impressions are favourable for this particular cure in 2-3 weeks it may not be and taste awful😀 Always best to stick with what you know works for you from past experiences, if you are not into experimenting like me.

As Wade says though there shouldn't be much or no difference in weight of different salts. . But I am happy to try it out anyway.

[Wade]

On 10/8/2019 at 3:42 PM, Raptor72 said:

Is kosher salt ok to use ? I’m assuming yes . I have the diamond crystal stuff . Non iodised . I’m hoping to test driver the Holy smoker when it stops raining 

Yes it is OK to use though the grains are quite large. As Justin mentioned, zap them in the grinder for a few seconds to make the grains smaller. It does not need to be powder small but granulated/caster sugar crystal size is ideal.

[sotv]

Couple of pic before and after slicing, from what I have done before this has been the most successful attempt at Smoked Salmon for me. Lovely pellicle formed, great flavour, no saltiness to finished product and sliced really well. Those gold silver boards made it much easier to vacuum pack them as well. Very happy and will be doing another side for xmas

Got 6 packs of salmon in total + some for supper tonight with bellini's and mascarpone cheese.

 

 

[Phlashster]

That looks amazing. Nice work. 

Phil.

[Justin]

really nice  mate, well done