Smokin!

[oldgrowth]

[Wefings]

I smoke on a Canadian built Bradley. www.bradleysmoker.com . Its a relatively expensive tool [ $350] ,But fish that you catch yourself is pretty expensive too. Might as well treat it to one of the best smoking tools available . The quality of the unit and control is awsome .From cold smoking [ ambient temp. ]all the way to hot smoking [ @350 Deg.] and everything in between . They have proprietary wood bisquettes with many kinds available .It has a water bath and the wood never "burns" so there is no ash or bitterness , only smoke flavor .I have mine on a plug in timer and once you learn the machine you can set it and forget it . It has a feeder conveyor for the wood bisquettes and slides one onto the heat every 20 minutes and pushes the spent one into the water bowl . Sounds like a sales pitch , but damn, I love that thing !!!!
Marc

[Falco]

[Cutty Sark]

Wow, three hours is fast!!! I have a big chief and it definitly is at least twice the time. I just finished a very large batch of sockeye last night and I'd say it took about 10 hours. But I also like mine dryer than some I imagine. And the smoker was packed and some of the pieces were pretty thick. I guess I do all the no-no's since I brine my fish in plastic most of the time, some glass when the batch is a big one, and always freeze at least one pack after vacuum sealing it for late winter when the fish are harder to come by. I'll have to pay more attention and see if I can notice the difference. I also am a big fan of the dry brine. I use the standard one off of salmon university, which is 4 cups brown sugar to one cup kosher salt, and 7-15 cloves of garlic through a press. Mix it up and slap it on, layer the fish in your dish and let brine for 6-12 hours depending on thickness of fillets. Rinse off and I put them on a rack in the fridge for about 8 hours to get tacky. then into the smoker they go. Easy and always turns out great. The honey brushed on sounds interesting though. Will have to try that.

Sark

[Bearbait]

I vacume pack and freeze smoked fish all the time. It lasts just fine for my tastes.

[flagold]

Some of you might be interested in this link:

>>SMOKER FISH RECIPES<<

Smoked Mullet:

6 dressed mullet of medium size, butterfly cut or spinal split if possible
3/4 cup salt
1 package prepared crab boil
1 gallon water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound hickory chips, soaked in 2 quarts of water overnight

The traditional way of preparing the whole mullet is to remove the head just above where the collarbone would be if fish had collarbones and cut along the backbone almost to the tail so that the mullet lies flat in one piece. Wash the fillets until clean. Add salt and crab boil to the water and stir until dissolved. Pour this seasoned brine over the mullet and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Remove from brine and rinse in cold water; then dry.

If using a cooker designed specifically for smoking, then follow the manufacturer's instructions for use. if you are using a smoker with shelves and a water pan, arrange the fish on the lowest shelves in the smoker. The water pan should be filled about half full with leftover water from the hickory (Mangrove in FL) chips. Close the smoker's lid and open the vent slightly to keep smoke and air circulating. Estimated time is 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

If you are using charcoal or wood fire in a traditional barbecue grill with cover or hood, here are professional smoker's tips: Let the fire burn down to a low, glowing, even heat. Cover with wet (over-night soaked then drained and partially dried) hickory chips. The chips make the smoke. Place the fish on a well oiled grill, skin side down, about 4 too 6 inches from the smoking coals. Baste fish well with oil at the beginning and occasionally during cooking. Covert and smoke for 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until the mullet flake easily when tested with a fork. Add remaining chips as necessary to keep the fire smoking. DO NOT put the fire out with too many chips, and do not open the cooker too often, venting the smoke and heat. Small twigs of red bay and bay leaves added during the last twenty minutes of smoking will add pleasant flavoring. what we're describing here obviously is what well could be called a delicate balance!

If you're using mullet fillets instead of the traditional spinal cut, shorten the cooking time to 45 minutes, or even less if fish readily passes the flake test. With smoking, however, a little over-cooking usually is better then under-cooking.

(Editor's note: this smoking recipe works well with kingfish, Spanish mackerel, cobia, barracuda, and any other oily fish that you may want to smoke.) Thank you Grif, this is a good one!

Capt. Charlie

[rogerbum]

[CatyMae n Steve]

I would NEVER smoke fish using Sawdust!

I vac pack ours too...nobody complains

Caty

[Da Nag]

Been eyeballing some smokers lately...these two manufacturers are a little pricey, but they seem to get rave reviews. Both are insulated, temperature controlled, just set 'em and forget 'em. Neither uses the proprietary smoking chips I've seen on some other high-end models - put whatever suits your fancy into them.

Cookshack sells several models, the SM008 and SM009 being their low-end models, which look more than adequate to me. Only difference between the two is powder coat (SM008) vs. stainless (SM009) construction.

SmokinTex makes a couple similar models - the 1300 (powder coat) and 1400 (stainless). Word has it, the owner is an ex-employee of CookShack. Seems like more bang for the buck - has more racks, is slightly larger, and costs less. Reason being, it's China manufactured, whereas the CookShack is US made.

CookShack has some pretty active forums, mostly devoted to their models, but there's info on the SmokinTex there as well.

[Sawdust]

Don't worry about Sawdust! He can eat his way out of any salmon smoker. Yummers. Jon and Cynthia make the bestest smoked salmon in my experience... gotta get over to Pt. Angeles and beg, beg, beg.

Bradley for me - works great. Pricey I guess, but with salmon at about 300 bucks a pound, who cares! My marina neighbor just filled his boat for 900 bucks - and got skunked on his next two trips

Dusty

[gljjr]

On my way from Memphis to Seattle two weeks ago we stopped at a Cabelas in Sidney, Nebraska. They had the Cookshack there and I felt that it looked poorly made. The door latches were very difficult to operate and the over all quality was no where near what I have seen on the Bradley.

I really like the Bradley but my barrel BBQ with the remote smoke box works very well for smoking salmon since I converted it to run on propane (I could never control the heat correctly until I did that). I can smake up to about 50lbs of fish at a time too!

[Sawdust]

Gary,

Don't think you can beat a good barrel/remote box. With a little work you can control the smoke and temp. Worked for me for years - got pretty tough to move from house to house to house.

Dusty

[Sea Wolf]

Somewhere, years ago, we had a discussion on how to build a real big dedicated smokehouse you could walk around in with a remote firebox and the whole floor and wall plans.

Somebody worked for an older guy when he was a youth keeping the thing operating as a part time job.......Tyboo???

[Sawdust]

Indeed it was TyBoo -

But now that he's older he probably can't remember anything about the old smokehouse. Time has a way

Young Dusty

[Valkyrie]

Hi Brats,

I just wanted to share our experience with smoking salmon for the first, starting with the great fish we caught on Lake MI with Mark on Not for Hire.

After reading the above posts/recipes, I got on the internet and found www.salmonuniversity.com., which has a great dry brine recipe (their recipe #1). Well, it worked out great and was delicious, but of course, it didn't last long.

Someone said not to smoke frozen salmon, but I did a test filet anyhow. No problem! Perhaps this was because we vacuum packed it.

However, when I did another batch, I tried a variation that is really good. The SalmonUniversity
says to score the fish before smoking, in a "candy bar" fashion. When I did the last batch, I made sure to get the brown sugar/salt brine in between the "bars", but this time when I put the fish in the electric Brinkman smoker I also sprinkled dark brown sugar on top of the filets, as well. I also added more after an hour and a half. Total smoking time was about three hours, with the largest pieces on the bottom shelf.

The added sugar topping gives a slightly sweet flavor and adds a very nice appearance and texture on the surface.

Today I dug out the last of the filets (steaks will be cooked) and they're in the dry brine right now.

Also, we just returned from SC and had a four hour charter where we caught a batch of bluefish. They're in the brine, too.

At first we thought that catching five nice salmon gave us enough fish for winter! Wrong. We're definitely going to get downriggers and catch our own from Valkyrie in August next year.

Mark, you're our guest next time out.

Best regards,

Nick
"Valkyrie"