This is a traditional example of preserving or drying salmon for the winter. Many natives of Alaska still dry their salmon on large wooden racks for use during the winter.
Start with Filleting your fish. Remove the belly if using King salmon, it is too oily to make jerky.
Slice the fillets length wise into ½-inch wide strips.. You can use whole salmon fillets for salmon jerky, but it takes a couple of weeks to dry.
1. Make your brine.
2. Brine the strips for 10 minutes.
3. Remove from the brine and quickly rinse under cold running water.
4. If you use a rack, spray it with Pam to prevent sticking. Another method is to tie string on one end of the strip and hang the strips in the smokehouse.
5. Smoke at 80degrees F. for 24 hours. The strips should be dry to the touch but raw in the middle.
6. Begin the time consuming process of finishing the drying process. You can use a strong fan to blow air across the product for the next couple of days. Dry it until it has the consistency of beef jerky.
7. After drying process, you should freeze the product. There are two reasons for freezing. One is to kill any parasites and the other is if you allow the strips to continue to dry it will continue to dry it will get so hard you almost consider it salmon leather.