The Hardest Thing About Smoking Salmon Is…

…Keeping the cats away.

Well, that’s really only partially true. I did have to spend some time while prepping the fish for brining and then while working with it after the brining, shooing the cats away.

The thing is, I’ve never smoked salmon, or anything, before. But we just bought this kamado grill thing that’s supposed to bake, roast, grill, BBQ, and smoke, and I decided to try it. I looked at several recipes on line, found one that was pretty basic and followed it.

The salmon turned out okay — a little salty and maybe a little overcooked (it was good enough for my husband to eat one whole piece pretty much by himself — the best piece of course). I don’t know if there was too much salt in the brine, I brined it too long, and/or I didn’t rinse it well enough. Next time I’ll make some adjustments to that part of the process.

And I definitely have to do some fiddling with the grill and charcoal amounts and venting and how long I leave the salmon in.

But all in all, it definitely turned out pretty well, considering my lack of knowledge and experience with smoking foods.