Cold smoked salmon (36 hours) using a Pro Q smoke unit

[KamadoSimon]

My parents bought me one of the Pro Q cold smoke generators. I was really skeptical about its ability to generate enough smoke over the claimed 12 hour period - but it works a treat. I do have difficulty lighting it sometimes & it might take 3 or 4 attempts to get it starting to smolder. But once it's working, it stays doing so. For the smoked salmon on the Kamado Joe pictured below, I got well over 12 hours from each batch of oak dust.

My tip would be to light it on the BBQ with any bottom vents closed, as any wind / draft at all seemed to extinguish the smolder at the lighting stage. I then actually left all vents closed, except for a tiny gap in the top daisy wheel.

Couldn't find the manufacturer's website but did find a how-to on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/v/43nMHZQukwE&hl=en

And here's a picture I took of the smoked salmon I did for Christmas day which had been cured in simple salt brine for a few hours & then cold smoked in the KJ for 36 hours using the Pro Q unit & 3 fills of oak saw dust! It was a complete mare to cut thinly as per shop-bought stuff, but I got there in the end!



We have also been using it to smoke steaks before grilling them. I did the first two for four hours & this was too much - far too smokey to our tastes. So I cut it to two hours the next time & they were lovely. Will try one hour next to see if that is enough or whether two hours is optimum. I turned the steaks over once half way through - not sure if I needed to but as they were only laid flat on the grill extender in the KJ I thought it couldn't do them any harm.

[Chris__M]

Looks great.

The manufacturer's website is Mac's BBQ, with the CSG information page at http://www.macsbbq.co.uk/ColdSmoking.html. There is also a forum there, with an area specifically for cold smoking.

I've been doing a lot of cheese, butter and some nuts, but have only had some limited experimentation with fish - some trout, which was ok, and some cod roe, which turned out to be an interesting, but not altogether successful experiment. I love salmon, both smoked and non-smoked, so may have a go at that sometime soon.

Chris