Any recommendations for a Seattle area smokehouse that offers a nova style cold smoke? I've got the fillets, just need the processing.

I'm pretty handy with the Brinkman and a good alder hard smoke but I don't want to risk a cold smoking mistake.

thanks,
dover

Try Jensens in Greenwood.

Have you looked at doing Gravlox instead, it is basically a salt & sugar and dill cure done in the refrigerator. Takes about 48 hours. I use fillets that have previously been frozen to eliminate any parasites that may be found in fresh fish. Same as doing Sashimi (sp?) a safer manner over fresh raw fish.

I do this since I can't control the temp on my Big Chief enough to keep it in the 80 degree range needed for Nova Lox.

My son-in-law does Nova Lox with his Bradley, which has better heat control, possibly the Brinkman does as well.

I'll check with him and post his method after he get back from vacation in a couple of weeks.

Sebastes mentions Gravlox...I have tried making it twice. The first time I made it, I followed a free recipe I found on YOUTUBE, some series named "COOKING COARSE". It was wonderful! Very easy, came out just like the best Lox I ever had. Perfect. The stuff was to die for!
Basically its like a salt and sugar dry-rub on your fillets, then cover all over with fresh dill, wrap in plastic, put weight on top and leave in refrigerator until juices quit coming out...seems to me it was about a week you had to leave it. Mine turned out great. That was when I had a recipe to follow.

Fast forward a couple years, I thought about making some again. Couldn't remember the recipe, so went back on YOUTUBE to find it. Remembered "COOKING COARSE", found out that what used to be free was not, and now you had to pay for their whole series of videos. "Screw that" I thought so I just decided to wing it. Bad idea! It did not turn out edible at all. I must have been off in my ratios of salt to sugar is the only thing I can think. Or maybe forgotten one step or something.

Anyways, there are other Gravlax recipes out there, and if you do it right it turns out damn good. I just wish I didn't have to pay for that original recipe I saw. It was so basic and easy. The other recipes I've seen seem much more complicated for some reason. I just need to search around some more.

Moe,

I'll look up the one I use and post it.

Right now I don't remember the salt sugar ratio? I think I use a one to one mixture, but always refer to the recipe once a year when I make Gravlox.

Basically you mix the two ingredients.

Score the fish on the skin side about 1/4 inch deep every few inches.

Place a layer of the salt/sugar mixture, using non-iodized salt on the bottom of a glass baking dish,

Lay the fillet skin side down on the salt/sugar mixture.

Lightly dress the flesh side with the salt and sugar mixture, layer it with fresh dill or powdered if you can't get fresh.

Lightly coat the flesh side of a second scored fillet and place it flesh side down on the dill and fillet.

Coat the scored skin side of the second Fillet with the salt/sugar mixture and wrap the dish with the two fillets in Saran or another brand of plastic food wrap.

Place a brick or other weight on top of the fillets and put it in the refrigerator. I use a 5 pound disk from my son's free weight gear stored at our house.

After 24 hours, drain excess fluid from the dish, and turn the fillets over and replace the plastic wrap and weight.

Give it another 24 hours and drain the fluid if there is any left.

At this point it should be ready to slice and eat. You can give it another day if you wish.

Cut very thin slices, place on a half bagel coated with creme cheese, sliced red onions and capers for a classic bagel & lox serving.

I cut the fillets in sections that I think are appropriate for serving the number of people that I'll be serving and vacuum pack the pieces with the type of salmon and date on the package with a marker pen and freeze.

It will last for up to a year, packaged this way.

If kept in a fridge, I wouldn't keep it more than a week.

I prefer to use frozen fillets that are thawed to make Gravlox rather than fresh to
make sure there are no parasites still living in the flesh. It may result in slightly softer Gravlox, because of the second freezing, but it is safer than using fresh raw fish.

I once served lunch for 50 people, most had never seen Lox, in this case, actual Nova Lox done by Port Chatham when they still did personal smoking.

To my amazement, they polished off all 21 pounds I had brought to Los Angeles from Seattle. Some of them made sandwiches like it was roast beef, a half inch thick.

On the retail market at that time several years ago, that would have been about $420 bucks worth of Nova Lox at retail prices.

Thankfully it was my fish so it only cost me the processing fee which I think was about $3.00 a pound.

Another time I took five pounds to New York City to give 8 oz packets to some of my favorite photo editors at Time, Fortune, Discover, etc.. I put it in the refrigerator at my Photo Agency over the weekend.

When I arrived there on Monday morning to pick up and package my Lox, I was greeted by big smiles and thank you's by the staff, who had found it in the fridge Monday morning and had eaten the whole five pounds.

The stuff on the left is gravlox. I use a little more sugar than salt for my mix. That's something you can experiment with. Gravlox is easy and good but IMO some time in the cold smoker is well worth it.

I like gravlax a lot, and the folks at work think it's amazing... I learned to make it from this site/recipe:

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/132/Gravlax

Slicing it can be a bit tricky... the slices shown on the photo above are vertically sliced through the fillet... With some practice you can slice along the length of the fillet and get more traditional "lox" style pieces. There's some videos on youtube to watch..

What's with the eggs? i love em for sushi how do you prepare those?

Felix's in Monroe will cold smoke it for you.

I have a big 'ol box in my freezeer. Now I just got to get it down to the cannery!

NetMinder: eggs are surprisingly easy to prepare--actually it's better than easy -- it's AMAZING, because when you add the salt they turn the most impossibly red/clear/vibrant color (at least if you use salt, not soy)... Search for "Ikura Sushi" on google... I used these recipes:

http://blue_moon.typepad.com/blue_lotus/2005/09/this_was_my_din.html
http://blue_moon.typepad.com/blue_lotus/2007/09/post-6.html

I've experimented with quit a few Ikura recipes and settled on a very simple one. I separate the eggs by rubbing them though a badminton racket. I really disagree with the hot water method in the above recipes. After they are separated they get brined in a 100% salt brine, 1 cup of salt for a quart of water. A pint is about right for a couple of skeins of average coho sized salmon. 15 -20 minutes in the brine, you have to experiment with the time to get the salt uptake right for your taste. A few minutes more or less can make quit a bit of difference. After the brine they get rinsed in a plastic colander. Any broken eggs and blood get washed out that way. After a couple of hours drying in the refrigerator i put them in jars with a splash or two of murin rice wine. Oh ya, one more important thing. You really have to process the eggs the same day you kill the fish,don't let them sit around.