let there be smoke

hops and i smoked a salmon fillet on the grill tonight.

yep, smoked it. low and slow for over an hour. i was able, with the help of a thermocouple probe, to get a region of my grill down to 200F. the front burner had to be on its lowest setting, which caused a problem: i didn't get the wood chips really smoking until after i'd lowered the grill temp -- meaning that it wasn't properly smoky in there when i put the fish on.

that's a lesson learned. next time, it'll be smoke city before i drop the temps and put the meat on. one other thing to figure out will be how to change the chips part way through a long smoking session. the chips were set under the grill grates, making them inaccessible once the food is on. putting them above the grates may make them too cold to smoke.

anyhow, the salmon. it had a jamaican jerk rub (which was entirely different than the jerk flavor we've gotten used to at our jamaican place) and a jerk sauce. the sauce was tamarind heavy, which was good for a change, but maybe a little too intense on the tamarind/honey.

i've got all sorts of improvements in mind for the rub/sauce, but really, i think next time i'll use a totally different jerk recipe. the one at our local jamaican place is way better (though again, not really in the same sauce universe).