Blackwater Lodge Smokery

Fish like this are destined to grace
a far more refined (dining) table.

Blackwater Lodge is best known as a salmon fishing venue for anglers from all over the world. They flock to the Lodge to enjoy its hospitality and superb fishing on the Munster Blackwater.

It is also the only fishing hotel in the whole of Britain & Ireland to have its own in-house smokery.
Established in 1987, our smokehouse continues to smoke the salmon caught by our guests.

It also produces Gravad Lax - the delectable Scandinavian-style marinated salmon - that rivals even the superb quality of the Lodge smoked salmon.

That's the usual comment when guests sample the Lodge smoked or marinated salmon. They mean it even more when they're tasting a fish caught by themselves or one of their party on the Blackwater. In addition, we can vacuum pack their catch after smoking for ease of taking home.

In response to a great demand from Lodge guests to supply smoked salmon and Gravad Lax to them at any time during the year, the Lodge will be smoking and marinating salmon to its special recipes throughout the winter season. After seventeen years preparing salmon for the Lodge restaurant and guests, proprietor Ian Powell is now making this world-famous product available to a wider gourmet audience.

Whether you simply want to enjoy it yourself at home, or to share the experience with friends or colleagues (the perfect corporate gift), you can now have it delivered fresh to your door.

Gravad Lax:
Serve with a sauce made with equal amounts of French mustard & mayonnaise lightened with oil (olive preferably) to a thickish pouring consistency. Add honey & a dash of lemon juice to taste & then lots of dill. (This sauce also makes a superb salad dressing!).
Accompaniment: Danish Aalborg Jubilæums Akvavit (made with dill too!) served straight from the freezer.

Gravad Lax

Smoked Salmon

Smoked Salmon:
Brown Bread, a hint of lemon juice,
a sprinkling of pink peppercorns
(Baies Roses de Bourbon) & garnish.

Accompaniment: A glass of ice-cold Alsace Gewürztraminer.

Only the finest quality
fresh Irish salmon is used.

A mixture of salt & brown sugar is used to dry marinate the salmon prior to smoking.
This gives a lovely soft cure and mild flavour to the fish. Most commercially smoked salmon is cured only with salt, which is much cheaper and tends to impart a much harsher taste.

Quality, not cost, is the principle with the Lodge production and this fundamental step in the process merits the best ingredients.

For the smoke, a mixture of ash sawdust & juniper berries gives a unique delicate flavour. Smokemaster Ian is not a fan of oak for smoking, which he feels imparts too strong a flavour which overpowers that of the salmon. He says “It’s like a herb – it’s there to bring out the flavour, not mask it”. The lighter ash wood gives a milder flavour enhanced by the addition of about 10% juniper berries. He scours the countryside for hurley makers who provide him with a very pure ash sawdust as it is the only wood they use.

The smoker is a small-scale commercial unit fabricated entirely of stainless steel that has dual burning trays, forced air ventilation & digital temperature control. This ensures that the resulting product is of superb uniform quality, & is not overheated during production.

In summer time, when the ambient temperature is higher, the smoking is carried out overnight to ensure that the temperatures in the smoker are kept to the correct level.

Smokemaster Ian Powell inspects
a batch of smoked salmon.

For Gravad Lax, a special mix of salt, brown sugar, cracked white peppercorns & dill weed is used to marinate the salmon.
The dry marinating process takes two days to achieve the desired result.
Once prepared, the sides are covered with a layer of dill weed in order to enhance both the flavour and appearance.

	Once smoked or marinated, the sides of salmon are mounted on gold coloured presentation board & vacuum packed. After chilling, sides are then individually packaged in white cardboard presentation boxes for shipment. Full sides of salmon weigh approx. 1 kg and are charged for according to weight.
Both smoked salmon and Gravad Lax are available hand-sliced and vacuum packed, chilled & similarly packaged in expanded polystyrene boxes. It can be sent in whatever size vacuum packages you require - e.g.: 4 x 250 gm, 2 x 500 gm etc.

To ensure the finest quality & longest possible shelf life, smoking and marinating is only done to order. For orders received by Wednesday each week, fresh salmon is delivered to the Lodge on the Friday, cured & smoked or marinated over the weekend & shipped on Monday for next day delivery. Once received, it can be frozen if desired - as it has only been produced from fresh (not frozen) salmon.

The salmon come only from farms on the West Coast of Ireland that are reared in sea-cages for the best quality. Smokemaster Ian Powell is personally responsible for every stage of the production. Whilst he appreciates the acclaim given to wild salmon, he knows that it is only available fresh for a very short period during the netting season. The high quality farmed fish used is of very consistent quality, always available fresh & has a high fat content desirable for a superior smoked product. He knows only too well that smoked fish labelled “wild” available out of season is either mislabelled or prepared from fish that was frozen the summer before and which should therefore not be re-frozen. He remarks “Being a salmon fishing Lodge, everyone automatically assumes that the salmon we prepare is all wild. Frequently, self-styled gourments have been deceived when they taste our salmon. Sometimes it’s hard to have to tell them the truth. Of course, the quality of the fish plays some part, but the most important criteria for a superb product are skill, experience & fine ingredients”.

The More you Buy - the cheaper it gets!

For larger orders of sides or sliced salmon, there is a discount of 2.5% per side to a maximum of 10 sides. Single sides cost €40/kg (plus P&P), but this drops to only €30/kg (plus P&P) for 10 sides or more.
Similarly – for sliced salmon – there is a discount of 2.5% per half kilo to a maximum of 3 kg. 500 gm costs €50/kg (plus P&P), but this drops to only €37.50/kg (plus P&P) for 5 kg or more.

Ordering

Simply call or send an email or fax to the Lodge detailing your order. For immediate orders received by any Wednesday, the product will be shipped the following Monday for next day delivery within Ireland or any EC country. Advance orders are now being accepted for delivery in the run-up to Christmas.
Regular orders are also accepted and delivery can be arranged on a weekly or monthly basis, or as required. Small-scale production like this has a limited output, so orders are processed on a first-come first-served basis.