Not quite cold smoked salmon

My cold smoker mod kind of shit the bed. Click on the photo to bring you to the Flickr slideshow of the project to this point.

The major problem is I ended up smoking at 150-deg-F. Hot smoking is at 225-deg-F and cold smoking should be at about 80-deg-F. Alton Brown smokes his salmon at 150 for 5 hours and I did too. But, I was shooting for several days at 80 degrees. I think I have to make the heat source even further removed from the smoking chamber.

I'll take what I have, let it rest and see what it tastes like. Maybe it'll be good enough. Keep you posted.

Notes 06-Aug-2007:
1. The fish was un-frickin'-believable. A tad dry, but I rushed the brining because Frankie demanded we go bowling (like, really fast).

2. The heat source is a bit of a problem and I'm working on switching to a food-quality liquid wax to heat the wood to smoldering (as I'm writing this, I have a dry run going). This is because the hotplate, while effective, smolders the wood too fast. A 3" cube of mesquite decomposed completely in about 3-4 hours. If I turn the hotplate down lower, it doesn't smolder at all. Also, the hotplate heats too much and the design wasn't effective enough at dissipating the heat. Maybe it'd work if it were 30-deg-F. But I want to smoke year 'round.

I want a near thermal-free smoke source.

3. Anyway, I have a pound of wonderfully smoky salmon that we'll enjoy tomorrow night on a bed of greens with warm lentils on the side and a sesame/soy/rice vinegar dressing. Yum. Not a bad first shot.