Cold smoked by the side

Under thirty.

Loch reared sides, dry cured in salt and smoked over oak at twenty eight degrees for eighteen hours. Cold smoked salmon is never cooked, which is the whole of the difference and most of the argument.

Move over the fish and the circle is the kiln.

£46 a sideOrder a side
Hover to cut itTap to cut it
One side, three days

Salt, air, then smoke.

Nothing is injected and nothing is sprayed. Every stage is the fish losing water at a rate somebody is watching.

  1. 01

    Trimmed and pinned

    The side comes off the frame, the pin bones come out one at a time, and the thin belly is squared off so the whole side takes salt at the same rate.

  2. 02

    Dry cured, twelve hours

    Salt and a little demerara laid on by hand, thicker at the shoulder than at the tail. No brine bath, because a bath cures the outside faster than the middle.

  3. 03

    Rinsed, then left to dry

    Washed off and hung overnight in cold moving air until the surface goes tacky. That skin is what the smoke sticks to, and skipping it is why supermarket salmon tastes of nothing.

  4. 04

    Eighteen hours over oak

    Shavings smouldering in a separate box, the smoke drawn in cool. The kiln never goes over twenty eight degrees, so the flesh stays raw and translucent.

Two ways

Cold and hot are different foods.

They start as the same side of the same fish and share nothing after the cure.

01

Cold smoked

Twenty eight degrees, eighteen hours, never cooked. Sliced thin off the side, translucent, and it should hold together when you lift a slice by one corner.

02

Hot smoked

Eighty degrees, three hours, cooked right through. It flakes, it takes a fork, and it does not want slicing at all. Different dish, same fish.

03

What that means to buy

A cold smoked side is bought whole and sliced as you go. Hot smoked comes as fillets and keeps four days once opened rather than ten.

The numbers

What the kiln takes out.

28°CThe kiln, cold smokingAbove thirty two the fat starts to run and it is a cooked fish
18Hours in the smokeOak shavings, drawn in from a separate box
12%Weight lost in the smokeOn top of what the salt already took
2.4kgTrimmed sides from a four kilo fishThe rest is frame, belly and trim, and it all gets used
10Days once the vacuum is openedFour for hot smoked, which people always get wrong
Options

Buy it by the cut.

Everything is cut to order on the morning it goes out. A whole side arrives unsliced with a knife guide, because slicing it yourself is half the point.

Finish
Cut
Quantity
1
  • Cut on the morning it is posted, next day before noon.
  • A whole side is about a kilo and a quarter, unsliced.
  • The dill cure is not smoked at all, and is the one to start with.
The line we will not cross

Warm the kiln four degrees and it is a different fish.

Which is why the thermometer is the only thing in here anybody argues about

Enquire

Trade, or a question.

Restaurants and delis take sides by the case. Tell us how many covers you do and we will send a side to cut against whatever you buy now.