How to make a Cardboard Box Smoker
Frequent Gardenfork Contributor Mike told me about Alton Brown and his Cardboard Box Smoker, so we HAD to make one. It took a while, so the show is in 2 parts. Tell me what you do to smoke food.
part 1:
part 2:
The Smoked Salmon Brine Recipe:
Eric’s Salmon Brine Recipe:
2 quarts water
1 tablespoon Cinnamon
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt – must be non-iodized
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon black pepper
Place the fish skin side down in this brine in a flat pan, cover in refrigerator for at least an hour.
Take out the salmon and place on a wire rack skin side down,
Drain the brine pan carefully, reserving the brine solids an. Take the brine solids at the bottom of the pan and use a brush to coat the salmon with the brine solids.
Point a small fan at the brined fish until the brine has pretty much dried on the fish.
How to smoke salmon:
Add a large handful of wet hickory woodchips ( or whatever kind you like ) to the cast iron pan on the electric hot plate.
Place the grate in the smoker and spray with non-stick cooking oil, or brush with vegetable oil. Lay the salmon skin side down on the smoker grate.
Place a digital thermometer probe in the fattest part of one of the pieces of fish, place another digital thermometer across the grate to read the ambient temperature in the smoker.
Turn the hot plate on, ( i set mine to HIGH ) close the lid, and let it cook. Check the ambient temperature, you want it to be 160-180 degrees. Adjust the hot plate accordingly.
Hot plates sometimes turn off by themselves, so one needs to pay attention if you notice smoke not coming out of the smoker. Also, use a heavy duty extension cord, the shortest possible, to plug in the hot plate. Its possible to trip a circuit breaker.
When the salmon reaches about 140F, it is smoked.
Other neat stuff to check out:
I would be very interested in you trying to smoke some bacon. Great job this time.
There are many ways to smoke fish. Native Americans used low temp, slow cook methods. The idea was not to cook the meat but to dry it. For smokers likie yours, you set the temp at about 150F changing the chips every 3 to 4 hours. Otherwise, you go do other things. In your case, with cardboard, you have to watch for fire… so you are defeating your purpose. When I was a wilderness ranger in Wyoming, one of my peers was an apache and we smoked trout in a pit in the wilderness covered with wet alder branches. With salt, the meat kept for 7 days in our packs. The fish was not brittle but still mostly dry.