Smoked fish

[ErikPrice1@msn.com]

 Need a good smoked fish marinade for trout. The last one I had didn't taste the way I remembered it.

[chuck w.]

Need a good smoked fish marinade for trout. The last one I had didn't taste the way I remembered it.

Here's what I use on salmon, steelhead, and kokanee. don't know about regular trout as I rarely keep them unless I catch a hold over.

This is a dry brine or rub if you will.

4 C. brown sugar
1 C. PICKLING salt. Do NOT use any iodized or rock salt.
10-15 clove fresh pressed garlic. You can use garlic powder but I don't think it turns out nearly as good.

Mix dry brine. liberally cover prepared fish. In a NON-Metallic pan cover bottom with a thin coating of the dry brine. layer in fish. cover and place in the fridge. The amount of brine time time depends on the thickness of the fish. For trout I might go maybe an hour. For large salmon pieces maybe out to six hours, but not longer unless you are partial to salt licks and such things. After brining, rinse brine off under cold water, pat dry, and place fish on some sort of rack to air dry at room temperature. I use the racks from the smoker. do not use the wifes cookie or cake racks. Do not ask me how I know this . Now place fish in your smoker. I use alder, but have used apple, pear and other fruit woods with good results. After smoking and cooling we use a food saver to vacuum pack and freeze.

[crazell]

Chuck w., that sounds good. About how much fish can you make with this? Per batch i might add?

[chuck w.]

Crazell. How much fish it will do depends on some experimentation. First off if the salmon is thick we will cut fillet into aprox 8 oz. portions and score (cut) through to the skin but not through the skit itself. this give the rub more surface area to penetrate. When we get down to the tail sections since the meat is thinner we do not score the fish. Another consideration is how much salt /sweet flavor you want. We prefer a less salty sweet product. We do use a lot of smoke, probably more than most folks. Just about everyone eats all we put out. For trout , unless are doing your limit and everyone else's in the county I would reduce the recipe to 1/4. We have done as much as 20 lbs of prepared fish with the batch I posted. If you get into some salmon use the belly trimmings to make "squaw candy". For this we have the belly strips we cut off the fillets and we use the same brine with the following minor changes. Ad a couple of more cups of sugar to recipe. Lett the bellies sit in the brine for at least 8 hours. Then rinse,air dry and smoke. Since the bellies are mostly fat and too strong a flavor for a lot of folks we don't use for regular smoked salmon. I really like the squaw candy but not so much the wife. A little secret here. In my opinion, the squaw candy makes a much better salmon ball than regular smoked salmon. Hope this helps.

[crazell]

Thanks chuck w. It did answer my question. Suppose to go fishing in a few weeks. I'll have to give it a try. Have a good one..

[ErikPrice1@msn.com]

Thanks chuck, will try to smoke some this week.