I'll see if I can do another batch tomorrow, and get a picture fwiw. I just haven't had much time. But I've been smoking my way through the smoked buds and liking them quite a lot.
I smoked that particular batch of candied salmon lightly for about four hours, along with the bud. This wasn't enough to really give the herb much smoky flavour and later I remembered a conversation I once had with a local sea-salt maker who sometimes smokes some of their salt for flavour. They said that its not nearly as delicate to smoke as salmon and doesn't pick up the smoke well. This person would smoke their sea-salt heavily for ten hours.
After the fish was out I smoked the bud another two hours quite heavily and this was much more satisfying. Bud took on more of an even light brownish colour and smoky smell.
It seemed like it got fairly hot in the smoker and I was a little worried about overcooking the bud, but apparently that didn't happen since it works well to get me high just as well as it ever did. I thought the heat might have been enough to decarb it. Probably not. Didn't have a thermometer so I'm not sure and I've never decarbed anything before so don't know about that stuff....
It did get completely dried out so I had to put it in a humid container overnight to rehydrate back to good as new.
Because they're all smoky smelling the bud samples smell more similar to each other than they used to. I can't explain the smell but it's a bit like that cooked/burnt brown sugar candy kind of smell. It definitely seems more 'baked' now. More like some sort of food. It's tempting me to eat some of it. It's definitely appealing. I wouldn't want to turn all my bud smoky, but it seems like good stuff.
This was all well cured bud, and it might be my imagination but it seems to smoke smoother now. At any rate it's completely smooth.
- Things I'll do differently next time -
Try to find an oven thermometer around this place.
- Use more smoke - smoke harder and probably faster.
- I might put a pot of water in there and see if it helps keep up the humidity level. Might be easier on the bud, and may possibly allow the smoke to cling to the herb better.