Foods & cuts · Salmon

Whole side of salmon

A whole side, usually sealed in heavy foil and cooked indirect. A different object from a portion fillet, not a bigger one — which is why it has its own window.

What it is

Form: Fillet
Typical weight: 800–1500 g
Typical thickness: 20–40 mm
Cut: Not a cut of anything

Why it behaves as it does

The tapering is the whole problem. A side runs from a thick shoulder end to a thin tail, and every part of it is over the same heat, so the tail is finished while the shoulder is still translucent — a conflict a portion fillet simply does not have. The foil packet is the usual answer and it works by changing what the fish is exposed to: sealed, it cooks in its own steam at a more even temperature than radiant heat delivers, which narrows the gap between the two ends. It costs the skin, which will not crisp in a packet. A side is also the one salmon format that is genuinely served whole to a table, and it will not survive being turned — the packet is flipped, not the fish.

When is it done?

Food-safety endpoint

Health Canada
In Canada, pork pieces and whole cuts — bone-in chops, boneless loin chops, rib roast and loin roast — should reach 71 °C (160 °F), and fish 70 °C (158 °F). Shellfish and crustaceans are 74 °C. No rest interval is attached to any of these.
- 71 °C (160 °F) — measured at the centre of the thickest part.
- 70 °C (158 °F) — measured at the thickest part of the fillet.
The rule and its source
In Canada, pork pieces and whole cuts should reach 71 °C (160 °F), and fish 70 °C (158 °F). No rest interval is attached to either.
Well established
- Health Canada — States this directly
  “Pieces and whole cuts, for example, bone-in chops, boneless loin chops, rib roast, loin roast 71 160 ... Fish 70 158”
  The sharpest disagreement in the catalogue between two neighbours. Canada gives a pork chop 71 °C; USDA FSIS gives 63 °C with a three-minute rest. That is eight degrees and a rest interval between two countries whose supermarkets sell the same cuts. Fish diverges too: 70 °C against the American 63 °C.
  Canada's chart attaches no rest interval to any row.
  About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-15
Food Standards Australia New Zealand
Use separate equipment for raw and cooked meat, and never put cooked meat back on a tray or plate that held it raw. Throw away leftovers unless there is refrigeration available to cool them quickly.
The rule and its source
At a barbecue, raw and cooked meat must be kept apart: separate equipment, and cooked meat never returned to the tray that held it raw.
Well established
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand — States this directly
  “never place cooked meat back on the trays that held the raw meat”
  The single most common barbecue food-safety failure, and one that no cooking temperature prevents.
  Where it applies:
  Australia and New Zealand.
  About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-13
Food Standards Agency
In the UK, fish is cooked when the flesh has turned opaque — no longer transparent — and separates easily with a fork.
The rule and its source
In the UK, fish is cooked when the flesh has turned opaque and separates easily with a fork. The regulator gives no temperature for fish.
Well established
- Food Standards Agency — States this directly
  “fish flesh should turn opaque (no longer transparent) and separates easily with a fork”
  How it was measured:
  A visual and textural test, not a thermometer reading. The same document gives 70 °C for 2 minutes as the general combination for food, and does not apply a figure to fish.
  Where it applies:
  England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
  About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-16
Food Standards Agency
Wash a thermometer stem in hot soapy water before and after each use, and do not put the head in water.
The rule and its source
A thermometer stem should be washed in hot soapy water before and after each use, and the head should not be put in water.
Well established
- Clemson Cooperative Extension — States this directly
  “Make sure to clean the stem of your food thermometer with hot soapy water before and after each use. Do not immerse the head in water.”
  Before and after, not just after. a probe that went into an undercooked bird and then into the next one is a cross-contamination route BBQHQ's food-safety model already recognises between surfaces and hands, and has never described for the instrument that touches every piece of meat on the grate.
  The head exclusion is an equipment instruction rather than a hygiene one — electronics — and is recorded here because it is in the same sentence and separating them would misquote the source.
  About this source · Original · retrieved 2026-08-21

Texture endpoint — how you actually know

Opaque throughout, and flaking at the thick end

ASMI's endpoint is visual and BBQHQ keeps it as written: opaque throughout, judged at the thickest part of the shoulder end rather than anywhere else — the tail will have been opaque for some minutes by then, which is the tapering problem and not a sign the side is done. ASMI's other instruction matters more inside a packet than outside one: seafood carries on cooking after it leaves the heat.

How long it takes

Whole side of salmon, foil packet, indirect

Estimated cooking window

16 min–20 min

Moderate confidence

Why this is a range, not a number

Cookers hold temperature imperfectly
Thickness varies between pieces
How cold the food was when it went on

Cook to the endpoint, not to the clock. The window tells you when to start checking.

What this rests on

BBQHQ publishes a window for this cook.

Observations: 1
Documents: 1
Publishers timing this cook: 1

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute

Why confidence is not higher

Several documents, but all from one publisher.
At least one source does not state the cooker temperature.
No source states whether the food went on fridge-cold or rested.

How the sources were combined

ONE PUBLISHER, ONE ARRANGEMENT, AND NO ARITHMETIC — WHICH MAKES IT THE PLAINEST WINDOW IN THE CATALOGUE. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute gives a side of salmon in a heavy-duty foil packet 8 to 10 minutes seam side down and a further 8 to 10 seam side up, ending when the fish is opaque throughout. BBQHQ adds the two halves to publish 16-20 and does nothing else to it: no rate is multiplied, no envelope is stretched, no second publisher is averaged in. The addition is the one derivation step and it is the step the source itself describes, since the packet is turned once rather than cooked twice. WHY IT DOES NOT COMBINE WITH THE SALMON FILLET WINDOW, WHICH IS THE WHOLE REASON THIS PROFILE EXISTS. A portion fillet on the bars and a whole side sealed in foil are not the same cook at different scales. The fillet is exposed to radiant heat on one face; the side is in a closed steam environment and never touches a bar. A profile spanning both forms would be refused, and this one does not need to be — it is a different food, added so that this evidence could stop being held. The temperature envelope is BBQHQ's and is declared: ASMI states no grill temperature at all, and the range here is the ordinary indirect band the rest of the catalogue uses for a lidded cook, recorded so the window is not read as applying to any heat whatever. That is the single largest source of uncertainty in the figure.

What makes the window as wide as it is

Cookers hold temperature imperfectly
Thickness varies between pieces
How cold the food was when it went on

When it goes wrong

It came out dry: The fish came out dry — 2 distinguishable causes.
It fell apart: Fish falling apart on the grill — 2 distinguishable causes.

Afterwards

Cooling, keeping and reheating what is left is general guidance for barbecue leftovers. Neither UK authority publishes anything specific to whole side of salmon, and BBQHQ does not invent a distinction they do not make.