Thanks for all the tips and comments on the “Salmon on Cedar Planks” recipe! With all the new knowledge and some experiments, here is my next variant of smoking fish:

Based on a tip from my friend Greg, this time used a brine. Not sure why, but brining fish somehow is not a common practice here (or I simply did not know). I was first very sceptical, but the result convinced me that this is really a good thing!

💡 Brining means soaking fish for some time in a sea-salt based solution. Some brine recipe just say brining for 10 minutes or so, other recipes indicate brining overnight.

For my first brine I used a basic recipe:

• 1 TS (Table Spoon) of kosher sea salt (do not used iodized salt!)
• 1 TS brown sugar
• 4 cups of cold water

I have brined the fish for three hours in the refrigerator.

For the dressing I used sesame seeds in a soy sauce:

The dressing gets on both side of the fish, added lemon slices and frozen spinach:

Then placed it into the smoker, smoking at around 80-95°C:

After one hour in the smoker:

Took it out after 1 hour and 15 minutes (in retrospect I should have taken out the tuna after one hour):

The result was really looking good:

Everything had a nice smoking flavour, combined with the smell of the cedar blanks. The spinach was well cooked, but maybe next time I will defrost it upfront to have it a bit warmer and cooked a bit more.

The tuna was a bit overcooked for my taste, so next time I’ll take it out 15 minutes earlier. But it tasted delicious!

The salmon on the other side was perfect: juicy, full of flavours, and with the brining the fat came out not as much as in my earlier attempt

In summary: very successful with improvement points identified. I think next time I will brine it overnight in the refrigerator, and measure the temperature inside the tuna and take it out earlier. For the dressing I will plan to add Teriyaki sauce as well. If you have other tips or tricks, simply comment and let us all know :-).

Happy Brining 🙂