Chipotle Glazed Smoked Salmon on MAK 2 Star Pellet Grill
Slow smoked Chipotle glazed salmon on the MAK 2 Star pellet grill is a quick and easy evening meal you can cook any day of the week.
We had a hankering for some fish and found this beautiful cut of wild caught salmon in our freezer. This will be a simple cook like most cooks we do during the week. That is the advantage of having a reliable pellet grill. You wake up in the morning, take a quick look in the freezer, and pull something out to thaw in the fridge for after work. Fire up the pellet grill in 5 minutes and you have perfectly smoked food every single time.
Cook Details
- Large cut of wild caught salmon thawed in fridge
- SuckleBusters SPG Seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic)
- Glazed with SuckleBusters Chipotle BBQ Sauce
- MAK 2 Star Pellet Grill
- FlameZone covers on
- Smoke Mode
- 1 hour 42 minutes total cook time
- Lumber Jack Supreme Blend wood pellets
- Real Ale Coffee Porter Beer to hydrate the cook
- Ray LaMontagne on the Sonos system
Seasoned Salmon Filet with Salt, Pepper, and Garlic
Once we got the beautiful thick cut of salmon thawed out, we seasoned it with a light coat of SPG seasoning. After the pit heated up to around 180 degrees in Smoke Mode, we put the salmon on the upper rack. I inserted the temperature probe in the thick part of the filet and set the alarm for 135 degrees.
The temperature probe on the MAK 2 Star read 30 degrees internal so that will give you an idea of what we started with. Cook time will vary depending on the temperature of your fish and the thickness of the cut.
At this point, the MAK 2 Star pellet grill has been humming away around 185-190 degrees. It has been maintaining temperature within five degrees. Love this pit. After every dump of fresh pellets the grill would let off a puff of smoke like Cheech and Chong were in the next room. This is a smoking machine!
My internal goal temperature is 145 but I want to apply some Chipotle Glaze the last ten degrees and let it cook into the salmon. SuckleBusters Chipotle BBQ sauce goes good with everything. We have been so happy with all their products and plan on buying more.
Our total cook time was around 1 hour and 42 min from start to finish. The MAK Pellet Boss controller was set to smoke mode which hovered around 185-190 degrees. The final internal temp was 145 degrees in the thickest part of the salmon filet. The smells coming off the filet were awesome, and we couldn’t wait to dive in.
Beer Pairing: Coffee Porter
I looked deep in our second fridge and found an old friend. The Coffee Porter by Real Ale. It must have been a stowaway from last year. This is a very balanced porter beer with a smooth coffee finish.
The beer is brewed with direct trade beans from Katz Coffee and is “a dark, malty porter with sublime coffee notes”. That is a quote directly from the label and I would have to agree. Real Ale Brewing Co out of Blanco, Tx does a seasonal release every year. Grab some while you can because it won’t be around long.
Conclusion
For such a simple cook, it was fun. I had some Ray La Montagne playing on the Sonos system while enjoying a Real Ale Coffee Porter and the smell of slow smoking oak, hickory, and cherry wood pellets.
Zipper our Papillon dog helped with the cooked. He entertained us by retrieving the golf ball to kill time. I tried getting a more focused photo of him, but he moves like greased lightning.
If you like smoked salmon, you're going to love this recipe. The final product is salmon infused with a rich smokey flavor and a sweet finish from the Chipotle glaze. The smoke flavor is perfectly balanced as pellet grills are great at not overdoing the smoke to a point the food is ruined. Pellet grills allow you to create perfectly smoked foods with little effort. Of course, the MAK 2 Star General takes this to a whole new level!
