A fresh piece of salmon is hard to beat when grilled over charcoal or on a gas grill.
Here are couple of tips for a successful cook:
Check the fillet for “belly bones” (pinbones) and remove.
Make sure your cooking grate is thoroughly cleaned to avoid sticking.
Make sure the grill is preheated before putting the salmon on the cooking grate.
Place the salmon on a piece of foil, season and use the foil to easily slide the salmon onto the cooking grate.
Place the fillet perpendicular to the cooking grate.
For smoking, Alder is a preferred wood but at Grillbillies we can only source kiln dried wood which we will not sell so we use sugar maple as a substitute.
When cutting to serve, cut the fillet width wise but do not cut through the skin. Use a spatula and place it between the meat and the skin to serve.
Serves 4 to 6
Ingredients
- 2+ lb. skin on salmon fillet
- 2 Sugar maple wood chunks 2″ to 3″ or 1/2 lb. of sugar maple pellets
- 3 oz. Vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp. Dizzy Pig Raging River, Tsunami or Pineapple Head
- 1 medium size lemon
- 1 tbsp.. Fresh chopped parsley
Preparation
Place the fillet in a brine, cover, place in the fridge and let sit for about 3 hours.
15 mins. before removing the fillet from the brine start the grill. If cooking on charcoal start the grill 1/2 hour before.
With a paper towel, oil the cooking grate well.
Grilling with charcoal
Once you have achieved a good coal bed place wood chunks right on the lit coals. Give the coals about 5 to 10 mins. to produce “good smoke“.
Grilling with a gas grill
If you decide to use pellets, follow the instructions on the package for placing pellets on the grill. Unlike wood chunks, once the pellets are lit and the is grill up to temp place the fillet on the cooking grate.
Take a piece of foil that is large enough to fit the fillet, lightly coat the foil with oil large enough for the fillet.
Remove from the fillet from the brine, place on the heavy duty foil skin side down, blot dry, coat the topside with a light coat of oil and season.
When the grill temp is around 350 degrees, slide the fillet off the foil onto the grill and close the lid.
The cook time is dependent on the thickness of the fillet but normally 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
When the internal temp reaches 145 degrees remove from the grill with 2 regular sized spatulas or a wide fish spatula..
Add a few thinned cut lemon slices on top and sprinkle a light coat of parsley and serve.
