How to Fillet a Big Salmon and Prepare it for Smoked Salmon Recipe

all right we're going to play here and show you how we're getting ready for the smoker now this is a nice big salmon this is about 28 pounds first I'll be a nice stiff knife a little flimsy like and this hasn't been cleaned so we're going to show you how to clean it unclean so I'm gonna take off the adipose fin the dorsal fin flop it over here take off the anal fin these two little belly slams just like so then I'm going to split him right up I haven't taken any guts out um you don't have to turn him over let me put my knife right in behind plan offers I don't like to have an ice with knife I'm going to put it right in behind the old collar here down to the back boom turn the knife side way and then just go right down the backbone that just skis right on down the backbone like so never putting your hand out here in front of the knife keeping it behind it and there's one nice big foot and we're going to roll it over do the same thing on this side now if I was just learning to do this I'd cut the head off so I can see the backbone and makes it easier for a beginner but I've done enough of these that I know where it's going to be asked so right there is my two filets I'm going to take the belly bones off of it just a second now most people throw this out in the water and you think you're done with before there's a lot of good eating on this background so I'm going to show you what we get rid of the head here maybe now having done this lots of times I know that this backbone have got a lot of meat on one 35 35 pound salmon will have 1 pint of scent of fish on that backbone so don't waste it we'll get that off of there put your lights down gets the backbone turn sideways go all the way down doing the same thing right all the way down to the tail the same thing on this side I also smoke these little pieces everybody likes them they're thin but they turn out just like jerky same thing on this side like I said this fish here was 20-some pounds about 26 pounds but see I got a half of a pint of fish right there now I break the backbone up and I'm going to take this back to the river goes out in the middle of the river so I return those nutrients to the river now we'll clean off my board a little bit I'm gonna get rid of these belly bump I'm going to do this two different ways you can do it either way I'll show you probably the easiest way then I'm going to show you a fast way the easiest way is I know by doing a lot of these there's a couple bones up here the growth sort of crooked hard to get your knife under so I'm going to leave four or five bones on the end putting my knife down there I'm pulling it up towards the rib bones leaving the meat all I've got is just a little bit of bones like so then I'm going to get those four or five take that off I've got rid of the rib bones then the next thing I want to do is one side of the other is going to have this cartilage from the dorsal fin that's on this side so I'm going to take that off now I have a fillet of fish which is 28 bones and that was where the pin bones are right here there's 28 of them right down here at the anal exit you can pull those out with pliers if you want to I never do I just take them out whenever it's done cooking all right now so we have one side it's ready now here's the way so I would smoke this fish most of us are doing it in chunks I want you to try this one there's the belly that's one of the best pieces then you have this piece right here this is my favorite piece my cut so that it can make it to into the smoker then I've got this piece I'm going to do the strip the same way and I'm doing mine and strips if it's a little bigger fish you can do three strips up here now the reason I do that is whenever I smoke this I'll have a nice finish on this side this side and this side I'll have it on three sides and it really comes out nice so whenever you do one flat piece you just have a basic brown on one side so that's ready for the smoker now we're going to do the other set remember I told you there's two ways of getting those rib bones off of there here's the other way now this is the way you do it after you become real proficient at it you want to do it fast put your knife up underneath the bone like this here you just rake it across always angling it up cut those off come back up here go underneath these same way got rid of those rib bones this is the fat that's on these males I get rid of it I'm not going to smoking take the other part of that dorsal fin off like so and I'm going to do the same thing I did on the other side there's my belly this piece right here rule is a nifty piece right next to the belly it's real oily so it just turns out perfect every time that's my favorite piece good stiff sharp knife I also might add you know sufficient not moving around I have a piece of melting this comes off of a conveyor belt like they would use on a set on a line where they're moving fruit to a warehouse you can find your piece in this belt in your fish doesn't slip the slide around that's a filleting a fish pretty soon [Music] you

Channel: Smokehouse Products

Views: 3,376,705

Rating: 4.5872445 out of 5

Keywords: Salmon (Ingredient), Fish Fillet, Smoked Salmon (Dish), How-to (Website Category), Recipe (Website Category), Smoking, Food, Cooking, Kitchen, Restaurant, Recipes, fishing

Id: 8nonoTY2lQI

Length: 7min 7sec (427 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 28 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/zpoz18]

Wow that was a fast 7 minutes

[u/aarondrier]

Now I need to find a piece of conveyor belt...

[u/Rabh]

Instantly went and watched his smoked salmon recipe video

[u/auctor_ignotus]

Nothing better than salmon belly

[u/the_drew]

Disappointing that he went to so much effort to fillet the spine, but then threw the head into the trash. Salmon cheeks are phenomenal!