Those are PERFECTLY smoked fish and chops !!
My recipe came from the Makah Tribe several years ago.
You wouldn't know until you take a bite! They could be too salty or not enough. Here is the simple secret and easy for us reloaders as we are used to weighing in precise amounts.
Need two tools: 1) An accurate 5kg digital kitchen scale 2) a gram gem scale with tray like in attached pic 3) mental state to convert weight thinking to metric grams 4) notepad and calculator
This is for dry brine smoking as it takes up less space in fridge. The concept is to only allow your product to absorb the correct and precise amount of salt which will preserve your meat. The industry std for meats is 2% by weight. ie if you have 1000 g of meat then you need to sprinkle 20g of salt on it evenly. ( 1000g x .02).
My formula for fish and bacon, chops etc is:
2% non-iodized fine grain salt .002. ( for those who like more salty try .025 later on)
1.5% brown sugar .015
1/4% pink salt (sodium nitrite) .0025
Dont freak over Sodium Nitrite. It is natural and wont hurt you. This is what makes bacon pink and crispy and stops food poisoning in other stuff. If you dont use nitrite in bacon it will be grey and not fry up crispy. 'Uncured' hippy bacon in your super is just cured with celery juice which has sodium nitirite in it, along with a red dye. lol.
Once you have weighed a portion of your project, ie 6 cut up fillets at 1387 g, then weigh the salt out first: 1387g x .02 = 27.7g. Then add the pink salt to it: 1387 x .0025 = 3.5g for total of 31.2g. Now take pan off scale and mix up the pink and white with a piece of bamboo skewer or similar. It will surprise you how little salt you will have weighed out and you will need to apportion it evenly on all the chops by sprinkling evely on both sides. When done wipe the fillets on the cutting board to scrape up any left over salt from underneath.
Now do the same with the brown sugar and then put in ziplocs so each one is half full and massage the pieces to even out the brine as it will already have started to sweat. Then suck to vaccum or submerge in water. Never use a seal a meal but you can use a chamber vac like I do, and then in the fridge they go. For the first 3 or 4 days you can take out and massage to even up any juices. After a few days there wont be much juice.
Now your product is absorbing the brine and cannot become saltier, or not salty enough, because it has only the correct amount to absorb. How long to brine? It is better to do longer than shorter because it is already being cured. For fish I do 5-6 days and take out a batch at a time to smoke. You could leave the rest in the fridge for a month I guess as it is stabilized. ie no hurry. For thicker and fattier meats I do much longer. Ie for a pork side (bacon) I do 10 days min and for a 2lb picnic ham I do a few weeks. For chops I do a week.
This sounds like a hassle but once you get the routine down it is just a half hassle. The other option is brine your meat or fish in a solution and have no idea if your meat has absorbed too much salt or not enough before you take it out. This is the amateur shotgun approach. It wont kill you either way but it wont taste consistently from batch to batch, and will usually be too salty.
Once you take the product out of the bag then pat dry with paper towels and then put it on drying rack with fan to dry to a light sheen. Then you can smoke it to get the outcome you like. You can also add pepper to the top or baste it with some maple syrup etc. I stay away from spice powders because when smoking a quality product 'less is more'.
ps: dont use your loading scales as they will get salty no matter how careful you are.
