How to smoke salmon and slimy mackerel

This is something that i do a fair bit, i love the taste of smoked salmon, mussels, mackerel all seafood, its so yummy.
The other day i went out on the Eden wharf to catch some fish,  that day i put a little bit of burly  in the water to attract the fish,  i started catching lots of slimy mackerel`s heaps of them it was like they were suicidal, anyway i ended up getting about half a bucket full, some of these i will use for bait on the beach for the bigger salmon and Tailor as they just love fresh mackerel, i wanted to smoke the bigger ones, cause i thought they might be really nice to eat as they are very oily and have lots of omega 3 fatty acids in them, the bigger ones are to hard to put on the hook unless you chop them up in small pieces.
The fishing report, well i never got any salmon or mackerel today, but i did get a few trevally which i will put in the smoker.

There is a fair bit to do when smoking the fish but its well worth the effort.
I use a small Weber BBQ that i picked up for $10 at a garage sale this Weber BBQ has vents in the lid and also in the base, this is great for controlling the air flow as you don`t want any flames in the smoker.

Here is the recipe for the brine solution,

• 4 cups water

• 1/4 cup salt

• 1/4 cup brown sugar

• 2 crushed garlic cloves

Mix all the brine ingredients and place your fish in a plastic or glass container (non metal), cover and put in the refrigerator for 8 hours, this does about 20 average fillets of fish, if your doing salmon which
is larger and thicker leave them in for about 12 hours 24 hours MAX

When the fish is in brine solution the moister is slowly taken out and infused with salt so its important not to leave the fish in the brine to long, the fish will get very salty.

Time to take the fish out of the brine and dry it out until it has a sticky film over it, which is called pellicle, i do this by placing the fish on some newspaper skin side down other wise it gets stuck to the paper,  wire racks are better to use as , 2 to 3 hours is needed for drying, you may need to place a fan near them, don’t worry about the fish to much as the salt from the brining will protect it.

Once your fish is dry and sticky its ready to be smoked, i will be HOT smoking the fish as this is faster than slow smoking which takes about 2 days, besides that smoked fish around this house gets eaten rather fast, even though its preserved better than just plain cooked fish.

Getting the heat, coals, and smoke just right smoking the fish takes about 30 Min’s, how i get the smoker to smoking stage, i light the fire with some dry hard wood get the thing going really hot with some nice coals not to much though,

Then i add some hard wood saw dust then put the lid on with the vent holes half open, i then put the fish skin side down on the racks and put the lid back on check back again in 15 Min’s make sure there’s not flame, if there is shut the vent on the lid, fish have been smoked after a good 30 Min’s time.

A big DANGER don`t use chip board in your smoker or treated wood…

Wood you can use,

• Hard Wood ( Australian Eucalyptus )

• Alder

• Fruit or nut wood

• Hickory

• Oak

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 1:29 am and is filed under Food and Live Style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.