How much smoked salmon will you need?

We recommend 80g - 100g smoked salmon per person for a first course / light lunch portion, or 150g for larger main courses. You can buy our organic sides in two halves of approx. 500g each if you feel you won't consume a full side at once. The smoked salmon has 21 day shelf life vacuum-packed, and can be frozen, although it is best eaten fresh.

WHERE DO YOU DELIVER TO?

We deliver to Ireland (north and south) with DPD.
We deliver to the most countries in the European mainland, the US, and Canada with DHL. Unfortunately we are not shipping to the UK due to Brexit. If your country is not listed as an option when you complete your delivery address information, please contact us directly - shipping@frankhederman.com

How will my salmon be delivered?

As smoked salmon is a fresh product, we deliver with couriers who provide a 24-48 hour service. We pack with an ice cell in temperature-stable packaging. Our smoked salmon is always wrapped in branded paper and we will send a card with a gift message on your behalf.

What is the best way to slice smoked salmon?

The easiest way to slice smoked salmon is with a sharp knife, straight down to the skin with a vertical cut. This gives an attractive D shape and minimises waste.
Always bring the smoked salmon to room temperature before serving.

 Why is smoked wild salmon rare?

It is not understood entirely why wild salmon is so rare. The wild salmon fishermen with whom we work take part in on-going research studies to tag and survey wild salmon to understand what is happening.
There is consensus wild salmon was overfished in the past. When Frank began smoking in 1982, fish were extremely plentiful but by 2006 stocks had plummeted. Drift net fishing at sea for wild salmon was banned in an attempt to help wild salmon stock to recover.
Campaigners blame salmon farms, and there is evidence that the intensive industrial farms found in Scotland and Norway have had, and have a detrimental effect on the wild salmon.
However, the farms in Ireland are small scale, and all use more sustainable organic farming methods to produce excellent quality fish. (Come and taste for yourself!)  As with conventional land farming by the dairy, tillage, poultry and beef industry, improvements still need to be made to protect nature.
Diminishing stock numbers can also be blamed on pollution of spawning rivers by conventional land farming and industrial or human effluent, changing water temperatures at sea and loss of feeding grounds due to global warming, and overfishing.

 What is being done to protect wild salmon?

In 2006 drift net fishing for wild salmon at sea, an incredibly indiscriminate method with enormous nets, was banned. Wild Irish salmon are now caught only by draught net salmon fishermen in the estuary (a much less ‘efficient’ way of catching fish) as the wild salmon make their way up river.
Very strict rules are imposed on the draft net wild fishermen’s co-operatives to restrict the numbers of wild salmon being caught and therefore to allow them to breed as they return to the rivers they were born.
While anglers are permitted to fish for wild salmon from January to the end of September, the draft net wild fishermen can only fish for three months of the year from May to August.
The quota for wild fish per wild salmon fishing licence has been drastically cut back to 35 per person, per season in 2024. This year, thankfully, fish were more plentiful than in previous years, and some fishermen reported taking their entire quota for the wild salmon season in one day.

What is the difference in quality between wild salmon and sustainably farmed salmon?

We do not buy salmon from industrial farms. All the cultivated fish we buy is from Ireland, produced by Mowi (link) who have small farms in exposed sites on the west coast of Ireland where they are bred in significantly lower densities (2 per cubic meter, rather than 35+ per cubic meter.) They have more room to move, and they are swimming against wave action, currents and tides. This means the salmon are well-exercised, and lean.
The lower levels of pollution and the constant washing of the seabed mitigates disease, and so the fish are not routinely fed antibiotics. This does not mean they are never medicated (it is the same with domestic farm animals); but there are strict rules about when the fish can be harvested if they have been treated so that potential residues do not compromise health.
The fish are fed a greater proportion of seafood, so they are more flavoursome than fish fed on a diet of only wheat and soy, a diet which makes them fatty and tasteless. While industrially farmed fish are fed with chemicals to achieve pink flesh, sustainably farmed fish are fed naturally occurring carotene.
Our smoke house is the litmus test for quality salmon: they must have the muscle tone to be able to hang, and we do not remove the skin, so there is nowhere to hide. While cultivated fish left much to be desired in the early years of farming, husbandry and quality have vastly improved in the last 2 decades.
As many people choose our traditional smoked salmon made with cultivated fish as choose smoked wild salmon - when they have the opportunity to taste both. This is also because our handmade method of production, and our genuine artisan smoke house makes smoked salmon that tastes so much better than industrially produced fish smoked on a large scale in kilns.
You can learn more about the differences between our method for smoking fish and all others from ‘artisan’ to large scale when you visit the smoke house on food tours.

Why do you say you have the only smoke house when there are so many other smoke houses in Ireland?

Even if smoked salmon producers brand their business as a smoke house, it does not mean they have a smoke house as shown in our website, or when you visit on food tours.
Ours is the only and oldest timber smoke house in Ireland, where Irish wild salmon, Irish cultivated salmon, and Irish fish such as haddock are hung for smoking.
There is one other brick kiln smoke house on the island of Ireland where fish are also hung but our smoke house is absolutely unique. It makes a huge difference to the texture, flavour, character and artisan quality of our smoked salmon.
We believe strongly that the word ‘smoke house’ should be protected, so that industrially produced salmon cannot be disguised with disingenuous branding.

 Why is your wild salmon defrosted?

All wild salmon is caught in the summer season May to August, but the vast majority is sold at Christmas, so it must be frozen! However, by law, all wild salmon must be frozen anyway. This is to avoid potential nematodes found in wild fish, although we would always check for these and discard any fish with this issue.

Can we freeze wild smoked salmon/cultivated salmon?

The regulation on freezing defrosted smoked wild salmon/cultivated salmon has changed in recent years. Now the authorities say defrosted smoked fish can be refrozen by the consumer. However, we recommend that you buy only what you need and eat straightaway.

What's the difference between artisanal smoked salmon and industrial smoked salmon?

The key difference from a customer point of view is the quality and integrity of the product. There is no comparison between industrially produced smoked fish – often very slimy, oily, with poor flavour and chemical notes - and genuine artisan produce. This is not to say that all so-called artisans are competent or know how to smoke well. There is nothing as dangerous as an over enthusiastic amateur.
The main differences are the size, and scale of the business, and experience of the people: ours is a micro business with long-serving members of staff who have learned the skills of hand-making food over decades. Small-size or duration of experience are not a guarantee of quality either, but if the artisan smoker has integrity and a genuine interest in what they do, there is a better chance the salmon will be good, through continuous improvement and innovation. We recommend you investigate properly, do your research, listen to word-of-mouth (from the right people) and taste for yourself! 
Industrial smokers are reliant on machinery and automation which speeds up the process, producing more food of lesser quality. As artisans we play a much greater role in the process, producing in small batches, by hand - which is important with delicate produce like fish and especially wild salmon. We use natural methods – a smoke house, in our case, as opposed to an automated kiln, and a hanging method. Ultimately, we care!
You can read about the way we source and produce our artisan salmon and seafood in our Provenance and Smoke House section. You can also read about Frank Hederman who began the business over 40 years ago.

 What's the difference between cold smoked salmon and hot smoked salmon?

The difference between traditional smoked salmon/cold-smoked salmon and hot smoked salmon is the temperature at which they are smoked, and the result the relative temperature has on the flesh. With cold smoked salmon, the fish are smoked here in the smoke house where temperature never exceeds 20-23C This means the fish have a cured texture (rather like Jambon Cru, or Prosciutto compared to cooked ham). It might seem closer to ‘raw’ fish but with a more dense, drier texture. Cold smoked salmon does not need to be cooked.
After curing, hot smoked salmon is finished by placing the salmon/mackerel fillets/whole mackerel/whole eel on racks in a smoker where the temperature is raised to over 76C with a live fire with burning embers in an enclosed space. The temperature is then lowered until the fish has taken on the flavour of the smoke that is continuously produced by the smouldering embers. The fish is effectively cooked and smoked at the same time and has the texture of poached salmon/cooked fish.