Smoking fish- Step by step tutorial
A step by step tutorial for people looking to get into smoking fish.
Step 1- Catch your fish! Really, almost any fish that is good table fare will be good properly smoked. Salmon, trout, walleye, halibut, panfish are all good.
Step 2- Fillet/clean your fish. I smoke smaller fish whole. Gut, scale, trim off all fins. Leave the collar of the fish attached, that is the u-shaped cartilage behind the gills, this area has more oil and therefore more flavor. Remove head/ loose gills etc. At this point you should have a cleaned, scaled, headless fish. Repeat with remaining catch.
Salmon/trout- fillet your catch. Some people prefer to fillet down from the backbone, but leave the belly attached to both fillets, creating, essentially, a boned out fish. I prefer to cut 2 separate fillets, and keep the belly, but as a third piece. On these bigger fish I keep the collar as well, cut straight across the body behind the collar, and as above, clean loose gills, etc. In very big fish you should trim the fillets to the same thickness, and also score the fish in a cross-hatch pattern, about 1x1" squares, this will allow the brine/smoke to penetrate more fully, through the meat, almost all the way through to the skin.
Step 3- Brine your fish. The internet is your friend for recipes. Large, oily fish can stand up to a dry brine better thank smaller fish. My theory is there is much more oil/moisture in larger fish than the smaller ones. So I use a liquid brine for small fish, about 50/50 of sugar/salt. USe good quality sea salt/pink salt and tasty sugar, I personally like "Sugar in the raw". Trout salmon get dry brine mix sprinkled on liberally. Set overnight, 12-18 hours or longer depending on personal taste. Put in fridge, in glass or plastic container. Don't use aluminum, the sugar/salt will impart a metallic taste to your fish.
Step 4- Morning of!
Remove fish from fridge. You will notice with your dry-brined fish, a good deal of liquid pulled from the fish. Rinse clean your fish, put on racks and pat dry inside and out, put back in fridge, uncovered, 2-3 hours, in order to dry more fully the fish before smoking. This is an essential part o the process which people skip sometimes. Don't do that. A wet fish in the smoker will form a film of sooty smoke on the surface. This is also why I don't use seasoning "rub" before smoking, or if you wish to, use a mix with little to no salt/sugar. Sugar/salt attract moisture, which is why your brined fish is more moist. It also will pull more liquid from your fish during the smoking process, so I don't do it. Its really personal taste.
Step 5- Preheat your smoker and soak your woodchips. Some smokers are not well insulated and take forever to heat up. You can insulate yours by wrapping it with cardboard, crappy old sleeping bag, drop-cloth, whatever. It really is a balancing act with some of these smokers, keeping them hot enough without getting too hot. Keep a fire extinguisher handy, just in case.
Step 6- Smoke your fish. By now your chips are soaked, your smoker is hot, and you are ready to smoke. Make 2-3 foil pouches each filled with about a cup of chips. Poke a few holes in the pouch to allow smoke to escape. Set pouch on top of coals, in your chip pan, or where ever depending on your smoker set-up. Position fish on racks inside smoker. Close door and allow to smoke, replacing chips as needed.
Smoke until done to your personal taste. If I am using the smoked fish meat in another recipe I smoke until cooked(about 1-2 hours, depending on temp), with a nice smoky smell and flavor, and golden smoked appearance. Tasty fish candy style smoked fish gets smoked longer, and I will usually glaze those fish afterwards with a spicy/sweet glaze, like a mix of spices and sherry/honey.
Step 7- Enjoy your smoked fish! Smoked salmon is great, the way it is cross-hatched, allows you to pull little 1x1' squares off the skin. And when it is glazed, it really is like smoky fish candy. Bellies and collars are equally tasty. Smaller trout or panfish usually are eaten finger-food style or else I flake the meat for use in other recipes.
I hope this helps someone wanting to give smoking a try. I'm not an expert b any means, I just like to experiment and have fun cooking. Maybe someone else will chime in with their own tips/tricks.
Step 1- Catch your fish! Really, almost any fish that is good table fare will be good properly smoked. Salmon, trout, walleye, halibut, panfish are all good.
Step 2- Fillet/clean your fish. I smoke smaller fish whole. Gut, scale, trim off all fins. Leave the collar of the fish attached, that is the u-shaped cartilage behind the gills, this area has more oil and therefore more flavor. Remove head/ loose gills etc. At this point you should have a cleaned, scaled, headless fish. Repeat with remaining catch.
Salmon/trout- fillet your catch. Some people prefer to fillet down from the backbone, but leave the belly attached to both fillets, creating, essentially, a boned out fish. I prefer to cut 2 separate fillets, and keep the belly, but as a third piece. On these bigger fish I keep the collar as well, cut straight across the body behind the collar, and as above, clean loose gills, etc. In very big fish you should trim the fillets to the same thickness, and also score the fish in a cross-hatch pattern, about 1x1" squares, this will allow the brine/smoke to penetrate more fully, through the meat, almost all the way through to the skin.
Step 3- Brine your fish. The internet is your friend for recipes. Large, oily fish can stand up to a dry brine better thank smaller fish. My theory is there is much more oil/moisture in larger fish than the smaller ones. So I use a liquid brine for small fish, about 50/50 of sugar/salt. USe good quality sea salt/pink salt and tasty sugar, I personally like "Sugar in the raw". Trout salmon get dry brine mix sprinkled on liberally. Set overnight, 12-18 hours or longer depending on personal taste. Put in fridge, in glass or plastic container. Don't use aluminum, the sugar/salt will impart a metallic taste to your fish.
Step 4- Morning of!
Remove fish from fridge. You will notice with your dry-brined fish, a good deal of liquid pulled from the fish. Rinse clean your fish, put on racks and pat dry inside and out, put back in fridge, uncovered, 2-3 hours, in order to dry more fully the fish before smoking. This is an essential part o the process which people skip sometimes. Don't do that. A wet fish in the smoker will form a film of sooty smoke on the surface. This is also why I don't use seasoning "rub" before smoking, or if you wish to, use a mix with little to no salt/sugar. Sugar/salt attract moisture, which is why your brined fish is more moist. It also will pull more liquid from your fish during the smoking process, so I don't do it. Its really personal taste.
Step 5- Preheat your smoker and soak your woodchips. Some smokers are not well insulated and take forever to heat up. You can insulate yours by wrapping it with cardboard, crappy old sleeping bag, drop-cloth, whatever. It really is a balancing act with some of these smokers, keeping them hot enough without getting too hot. Keep a fire extinguisher handy, just in case.
Step 6- Smoke your fish. By now your chips are soaked, your smoker is hot, and you are ready to smoke. Make 2-3 foil pouches each filled with about a cup of chips. Poke a few holes in the pouch to allow smoke to escape. Set pouch on top of coals, in your chip pan, or where ever depending on your smoker set-up. Position fish on racks inside smoker. Close door and allow to smoke, replacing chips as needed.
Smoke until done to your personal taste. If I am using the smoked fish meat in another recipe I smoke until cooked(about 1-2 hours, depending on temp), with a nice smoky smell and flavor, and golden smoked appearance. Tasty fish candy style smoked fish gets smoked longer, and I will usually glaze those fish afterwards with a spicy/sweet glaze, like a mix of spices and sherry/honey.
Step 7- Enjoy your smoked fish! Smoked salmon is great, the way it is cross-hatched, allows you to pull little 1x1' squares off the skin. And when it is glazed, it really is like smoky fish candy. Bellies and collars are equally tasty. Smaller trout or panfish usually are eaten finger-food style or else I flake the meat for use in other recipes.
I hope this helps someone wanting to give smoking a try. I'm not an expert b any means, I just like to experiment and have fun cooking. Maybe someone else will chime in with their own tips/tricks.
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You mean salmon like this? 
I just got home yesterday from Lake Michigan. I have 25lbs in brine right now...
I use the following, and should be done around midnight tonight.....
Brine is 1 gallon water, 1 cup pickling salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup soy sauce.
Fillets (skin off) soaked in brine for 12+ hours. remove from brine & towel off excess. Refrigerate for 2 hours.
Smoke over cherry wood for 3-4 hours at 175 degrees.
Makes for a very firm and dry fish, just the way I like it.0 -
Rick from PAWN STARS is a mod here on GB?[:p] Who would have guessed. Just kidding, you guys look similar tho. Nice looking king you have there. 24 pounds huh, I'd love to put that much aside just to smoke. Have fun
Also I was wondering, why do you remove the skin prior to smoking? Is it so the brine and smoke penetrates more easily? The guys I learned smoking form always would scale their salmon and then cut it, corss-hatch style, all the way through the meat down to, but not through, the skin. Brine recipe sounds good.
A good breakfast or lunch os an onion bagel, cream cheese, flaked smoked salmon on top. Very good
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quote:Originally posted by 317wc
Rick from PAWN STARS is a mod here on GB?[:p] Who would have guessed. Just kidding, you guys look similar tho. Nice looking king you have there. 24 pounds huh, I'd love to put that much aside just to smoke. Have fun
Also I was wondering, why do you remove the skin prior to smoking? Is it so the brine and smoke penetrates more easily? The guys I learned smoking form always would scale their salmon and then cut it, corss-hatch style, all the way through the meat down to, but not through, the skin. Brine recipe sounds good.
A good breakfast or lunch os an onion bagel, cream cheese, flaked smoked salmon on top. Very good
!
Rick from Pawn Stars.... That is a new one. Back when I had hair I was told I looked like Garth Brooks.
As for skinning the fillets.... That is to allow the brine to penetrate easily, and also to allow some of the oil to drain while smoking. Done this way makes for a drier, more firm product- which is how I prefer it.0 -
Now I need instructions on how to build a smoker.
Smoked bluefish sounds pretty good right now.
Or maybe Spanish mackerel if I could ever catch any.0 -
quote:Originally posted by 0oAKo47o0
Now I need instructions on how to build a smoker.
Smoked bluefish sounds pretty good right now.
Or maybe Spanish mackerel if I could ever catch any.
If you have a grill you can rig it up to work as a smoker. Look up online specifically about smoking mackeral, bluefish, etc and also a brine recipe. Prepare your chips in their foil pouches, preheat your grill and push all the coals to one side, or alternatively, turn one side of your propane off, and put the chips over the other flame. Add your fish on the cool side, cover and let smoke. You are sort of faking it this way, it will really be grilled, but it will still be good.
Also you can troll the yardsales and find them occasionally, or build your own. The simplest ones are steel barrels, ventilation holes drilled in the bottom and a few small ones on top, and a simple swinging door down near the coals. Pop-rivet a steel bowl inside the bottom about a foot off the ground. Pop rivet some support arms for the grate section and find a used grate somewhere. Really, that is all there is to the simplest designs.0 -
Well I have about a dozen pieces of walleye and a couple sunfish going into the smoker this afternoon. The fish were on the short side so I cleaned and scaled them and sliced them across the body into quasi-steaks, each about 2" thick. Kept the collar section also and the tail ends of the fish, I carefully butterflied from the belly up towards the spine, removing the spine and ending up with large, 4"x6" sections about 1" thick. The sunfish are cleaned and whole. I am trying a dry brine on these, 4 parts brown sugar to 1 part Pink Himalayan salt. The brine went on at 12Am last night, and I will rinse them off at 12PM. So they will have 12 hours of brine-time. Walleye is pretty lean so I am only smoking about an hour or so, maybe less if needed. My smoker only has a cheap thermometer which can be less than reliable so I am practicing judging the doneness by eye. I'll let you guys know how it goes.
EDIT: Okay, got the fish rinsed and placed back in the fridge and am working on this glaze recipe. I C&Ped from another website.
In 1 quart saucepan, combine 1/2 cup Apple Juice, 1 Tablespoon packed Brown Sugar and 1 teaspoon of Honey. Cook over med. heat for 2-3 Minutes, or until mixture is hot and sugar is dissolved stirring frequently. Brush Glaze onto fillets and continue smoking for 30 minutes to 1 hr. , or until glaze is set. Best when served cold.
UPDATED 11:26- It was a success! I smoked the fish for 2.5 hours. My smoker only has a crappy thermometer (warm/ideal/hot) I kept it idling at WARM/IDEAL. Some of the thinner pieces of meat were somewhat salty, not too much though, reminiscent of good jerky. I think this was because the salt I used, was at the bottom of the container and was pretty fine. Therefore a higher density of salt in the measuring cup. I would still use the same measurements next time and make sure I have large salt crystals in my brine. I brined for 12 hours and I think next time I will try 14-18 hours and smoke for 2 instead 2.5. It was very tasty, flaky, salty/sweet smoky flavor. The fish I used were too small to fillet and remove the ribs/pin-bones, so it was eaten finger food style. No big deal to me, since you use what you have. We ate it cold, after it had set in the fridge for an hour or so. I tried one piece right off the smoker and it was very god, hot, flaky, juicy, smoky. The glaze was good, but I'm not sure how much it realy added. I don;t think it took away from the flavor at all, but I might try a different glaze recipe next time. All in all, it turned out very good. I am going to catch some more and try it again.
BTW these fish were frozen for about 5 weeks and I could not tell a difference between them and fresh caught, flavor and texture wise. Maybe a pro could.0 -
A much quicker, easier way is to stick the head in your mouth and light the tail!!! 0
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