Wild Kenai Red Salmon

Smoking the Fish

Wild Kenai Red Salmon smokes its salmon in small batches – just enough at one time to meet demand. We pride ourselves on selling only fresh smoked salmon. Our salmon is never frozen again after smoking.

In preparation for smoking, we thaw the salmon, then fillet and brine it. We pride ourselves both on processing the fish ourselves at the time of smoking, and also on the quality of our brine. Our secret brine recipe combines fresh, natural and organic ingredients of the highest quality. We use no powders, preservatives (other than the smoking itself), or artificial anything (no “natural flavors” either). You can say everything on your label and have probably cooked with it yourself. Oh, and we don’t hide ingredients behind funny or ambiguous names – why would we need to? When we say “spices,” we mean spices.

Our fish is then smoked to a perfection, vacuum packed, and refrigerated. We then ship it to you. We guarantee that our salmon never sits around for long periods of time in a freezer, waiting to be shipped and savored. We smoke in frequent, small batches to ensure our product is fresh, just the way we would want to eat it.

What About the Guts?

Some people wonder what happens to the rest of the fish that does not get sold on the market – the heads, guts and tails. When 20 million fish are caught in a month, mountains of entrails need to be disposed of. Most of these are ground and dumped back into the water, polluting pristine waters in their quantity. Perhaps equally important is that all that rich organic matter gets lost in the process.

The fish processed by Nakek Family Fisheries does not get dumped. It currently serves in the test phase of a land remediation project, and will ultimately be made into commercial fish based fertilizer. Our fish makes food to eat more than once!