Barbecued Hot-Smoked Salmon on a Charcoal Grill

From America's Test Kitchen Season 3: Barbecued Salmon

Store-bought smoked salmon is inconsistent in quality and also incredibly expensive—up to $8 for just 4 ounces. We wanted to create our own easy recipe for this dish that’s often reserved for weekend brunch, and make moist (but not too moist), nicely crusted salmon with a hint of smoked flavor in any covered grill—in just two hours. Surprisingly, impatience turned out to be the key to our success. Instead of the traditional cold-smoking technique, which keeps the salmon moist but lacks flavor, we developed a “hot-smoked” method, and kept the salmon moist by brining. We achieved full smoked salmon flavor on the grill using a whole side of salmon. To get a firm but not overly dry texture, complemented by a strong hit of smoke and wood, we slow-cooked the salmon for more than an hour over a modified two-level fire, with wood chunks on the coals, but kept the fish on the cooler part of the grill the whole time. Using two spatulas to transfer the cooked fish from the grill prevented it from falling apart, and cutting through the pink flesh, not the skin, to divide individual portions kept the meat intact while leaving the skin behind.