That looks delicious, Carl. And 6 lbs to boot for a first time with salmon - that's commitment. I would have never thought of glazing salmon with orange marmalade.
As it happens, I smoked my third batch today. Same prep as before - 4:1 brown sugar:salt, overnight in the fridge, rinsed and dried, then back into the fridge for around 5 hours this time (I'd love to leave it out but we have a couple of cats that would probably make short work of it... then I'd probably want to make short work of them... just kidding, dear
).
This time I use 2.75 oz of apple, cooked at 180 for an hour and 50 minutes, pulled it at 138-ish degrees, and tented it for around an hour.
The taste was quite a bit milder (more delicate) than either the maple or the alder, but I kind of expected that with apple. We agreed that it could stand a little more smokiness to the flavor, so next time I use apple, I will probably use a little more wood (maybe 3 oz).
Next time up, I'll re-test with alder and see what a shorter smoke time does to the flavor profile (it was quite strong when I did such a long first smoke - still not sure why that happened - the last two have been much closer to what I would expect in time).
This is one fine machine!