Smoking your Catch

Smoking Your Catch
As with angling, there are ‘101’ different ideas out there about how to smoke fish and what works well. What I do is fairly standard practice and it works well for me.
	The fish that I like to smoke are herring and small salmon. Chinook, coho, atlantics, pinks, lake trout and rainbows are all very good eating when prepared in a smoker. Smaller fish like herring and pink salmon can be cleaned and smoked whole or you can fillet the fish. Make sure that you leave the skin on the fillets.
After I clean my fish, I immerse them into a liquid brine in a plastic tub or pan. Plastic or stainless steel containers are okay but definitely do not use aluminium. I put this into the fridge before going to bed and leave it overnight (6 to 8 hr.). I keep my brine quite simple mixing together 1/2 cup of pickling salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar and a squirt or two of lemon for every quart or litre of water. I use the same formula for all the different kinds of fish that I smoke. Here you can experiment with a variety of different herbs such as garlic, pepper, etc. With salmon, I sometimes like to add a little maple syrup to the brine.
In the morning, I remove the fish from the brine, rinse it off with cold water and pat the pieces with paper towel drying them as much as possible. Then I lay the fish out to air dry (can use a fan here) for an hr. or so until the fish feels slightly tacky and takes on a glossy sheen. This is caused by the sugar and is called the pellicle. This pellicle is important to the chemistry of the smoking process. Oil the racks of the smoker (pam or vegetable oil) and place the fish onto the racks with the skin side down
		I preheat my smoker about 30-40 min. in advance and maintain a temp. between 160F (71C) and 180F (82C). This temperature range promotes pasteurization and destroys bacteria without cooking the meat. (Smoking is a drying process, not a cooking process.) I check the temp. from time to time using an oven thermometer. My smoker comes with a cardboard box that goes over it to maintain a proper temp. in cooler, windy or damp weather. That box is long gone now and instead of replacing it, I built an insulated wooden box that works well.
I start the process by burning 2 or 3 pans of wood chips to introduce the smoke. Hickory is a great standby. Here again you can experiment by combining different types of wood chips. I will often start with a pan of hickory, then a pan of apple or cherry and then another pan of hickory. After the smoke has been introduced, I will periodically check the fish. I pick a piece of fish for ‘tasters’ and continue to sample it until it has dried to the consistency that satisfies my taste buds. The whole process can take from 4 to 8 hr. depending on the size of your fish pieces.
Although the finished product is very tasty right out of the smoker, I find it best after it has cooled in the fridge. The smoked fish can be wrapped in tinfoil and stored in the fridge. I sometimes wrap the fish in newspaper or put it in small brown kraft paper bags. When storing smoked fish this way, I personally like to eat it within 2 weeks to be on the safe side. You can freeze the fish for longer periods of storage but I find that it tends to be slightly soggy when thawed. If that is the case, just pop the fish into the oven at a warming temperature to dry it out to your taste. This usually works out fine.
			A good method for longer storage that I prefer is to vacuum pack the smoked fish and then store in the fridge. If you like, you can also freeze the vacuum pack but you might have to again use the warming oven to dry the fish after thawing. Of course you could ‘can’ the smoked fish and it will last indefinitely. However, that is a whole other topic for discussion.
If you enjoy eating fish, smoking is a great way to savour your catch.

Smoking Your Catch