Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Smoked fish

Northern pike in particular, but any fish in general.

How do you do it?

used to smoke a lot of mullet, but I gave the smoker away several years ago.

Here's your huckleberry..

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/newsearch?search=fish

Sorry, but that is the biggest group of clueless internet idiots when it comes to smoking fish... and god forbid should you try to explain anything to several of their "special" mods...

I'm willing to learn. What do you suggest?

Thanks,
LD

Leave the skin on the fillets, cut into pieces of your preference.

Brine in cold, cold, cold brine of 1 cup non-iodized salt, 2 cups brown sugar, per gallon of water. boil first to dissolve salt and sugar and then chill.

Brine for 90 minutes, any recipe that says to brine for longer should be tossed. Longer soaks compromise texture and add absolutely nothing. For pike that would be a killer.

Rinse quickly in cold water and place the pieces on the racks. Let a pellicle form. Depending on air movement, temp, relative humidity, and fish it may take several hours. Do not attempt to do it in the frig. Lack of air movement and high relative humidity will slow the process.

Put the fish in the smoker and start at low temp with good, pale blue smoke. I try to keep the temp under 100 or so for the first hour.

Let the heat rise slowly to 140 or so in the smoker and test for doneness after another couple hours. What you want is a good clean flake.

Add all your special sauces, flavors, and incantations to the smoked fish after. That way you can see what truly good fish is about and not be stuck with a big batch of something that does not really make the grade. Good clean smoked fish is hard to beat.

Any particular wood suggestions? What would you use for bluefish or other oily fish?

Pike is a white fleshed fish, I would recommend a mild smoking wood such as alder or a mild fruitwood such as apple. Additionally, with smoke 'less is more' ease into the amount of time actually smoking the product. Beyond this since I only cold smoke I would refer to the methods of those who hot smoke. I concur with the assessment of the smoking meat forum that they do have a lot of worthless information. Bluefish should smoke up just fine.

I pickle my pike , but will post smoked fish recipe later.

I've never smoked fish myself, but I've eaten my share over the years, even some Northern at one point. The problem with Northern is they are a low oil content fish, so as I recalled they turned out quite dry. That's why most of your store bought fish are a high oil content fish, like lake trout, salmon, white fish or ciscoes. Oily fish when smoked produce a nice moist but oily product that I've loved since my parents took me up to the north shore as a kid in the 1950's. Back then, there were smoked fish places all along the scenic drive north from Duluth along Lake Superior. My Dad would get a few ciscoes, fetch a bottle of beer from an old metal cooler and we'd have smoked fish along the shores of the big lake. If you're ever heading for a scenic drive on the north shore there is one must stop place - Russ Kendall's Smoke House. They make the best smoked fish I have ever eaten. They're located just south of the Knife River on the scenic drive.

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For Northern, I would also try pickling them. This is the recipe that seems to be passed around a lot on the fishing forums -

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Walt....I'm glad to hear that Kendall's is still in operation as the old timer would make his rounds through other communities [Grand Rapids] and he had his regular customers.......appeared at the door with a picnic basket full of various smoked fish.....all with a beautiful golden color.

Art has the technique down '''''I just put a bunch in the brine and after I have more coffee and sweep the ash off the porch, I'll put the chunks on the oiled racks to dry a pelicle.

I dont think northern would be a good choice . There is very little oil in the meat like the other poster said. I am smoking up 6 channel cats right now. I soaked in salt for 36 hrs cause I could smoke them yesterday. 12 hrs of brining is enough. I smoke with a bunch of charcoal and a few junks of apple this time but mostly cherry wood. I use chinks about the size of a softball and put them on the charcoal but must be wet wood.after 3-4 hrs @ 200 degrees it works fine. I only smoke Whitebass and catfish.

Do a split batch sometime with fish brined for just 90 minutes and if you do not see a huge difference I will be shocked...

I stay away from freshwater fish. Around Christmas I'll troll up a mess of smallish bluefish and Spanish Mackeral. Clean em up nice and get ALL of the blood lines out of the fillets, remove the skin if you can. Set in brine overnight( salt, brown sugar, bay leaves, peppercorns, dry mustard and Tony's). Wash em real good, put on smoker at 200 with some soaked chunks of what we call water maple. Bout 30 mins and it's done . Don't over do it. Flake it, add some green onions mayo and a touch of lemon juice. Throw it on a cracker with a slice of pickled jalapeño and wash down with a bunch of cold ones. Makes great Gifts, especially when you're a cheap fugg like me

Another thing to consider is previously frozen product(meat, fish) will absorb the brine more quickly than fresh.

How to smoke fish depends on what final product you are after. It can vary from a tender flaky product to a jerkey like product and many iterations in between.

Basic steps are:

1)Brining, using salt, sugar and other spices you are both removing some moisture from the flesh and imparting flavor to the product. Brining can be done wet or dry and depending on how it's done and how it's rinsed you can have a product that has almost no salt all the way to inedibly salty. I've settled on a dry brine as for me I've been able to get a more consistent product.

2)Forming the pellicle. After you have rinsed off the excess salt and after you have dried off the excess moisture you need to allow time for a pellicle to form on the outside of the fish. I put my brined and dried fillets into the smoker, put a small fan in the smoker or at the air entrance to the smoker and let it run 2-3 hours until a pellicle is formed. Don't skip this step!

3) Smoking. The smoke imparts flavor and that's really all it does. It's the salting and drying that preserves the fish, the smoke is really just a byproduct of the heat used to dry the fish. As Pete mentions, go light on the smoke! I've ruined more than my fair share of salmon thinking I had to keep a good smoke going for several days for that traditional smoked salmon product. Wrong! I needed sufficient dry air for the product, just enough smoke for flavor. I prefer either alder or 50/50 alder/hickory.

4) Drying/cooking. In a tradional cold smoke the fish is dried out to a jerky like consistancy. If this is your goal, you need to keep the temperature below 100F in the smoker and really all you need is a few hours of smoking and 2-3 days of running a fan to dry the fish. If you're after a hot smoked product then you'll need to bring the temperature up to a slow cooking point ~180F for 3-5 hours depending on the size of the fish. If the fish isn't cooked long enough it will be mushy, too long it will be tough and rubbery. You will have to experiment with your fish and your smoker.

5) Packaging, unless you've created a properly salted and dried cold smoke product, you'll need to either freeze for long term storage or keep it in the fridge and eat within a few days as with any other cooked fish product. There is also canned smoked fish which if done properly are amazing but my one foray with white fish was not too impressive.

Don't be surprised if it takes a few times to get a product you like, and write down all steps including length of time for all steps so you can tweak as needed or know exactly what you did right so you can do it again.

Mackerel's my preferred smoked fish. Cobia second.

Curious. What does skinning them before smoking do for you?

Personally, I don't like the skin in my fish dip. If I was making a jerky type fish I'll leave it on

Me either.

A little bit of vinegar will take the slime off of salmon. Not sure what you southern boys are smokin. :-)

And we do it exactly opposite... skin stays on for kippered fish and off for jerky.

Pike is much better pickled

I do dry brines and throw in some dill, chili flakes, cracked pepper


I do a lot of salmon, white fish, marlin, trout, tuna.

just smoked some black cod and halibut and it was quite good

I leave skin on. Cherry alder or apple wood for me.

Black cod, whole fish headed and gutted, is available here at Costco for $6.99 a pound... the best deal on extreme high quality protein going!

We used to get more than that for black cod in the round 30 years ago! Smoked it is beyond incredible.

black cod is my fav smoked fish. really good taste and texture

Just caught a bunch out of westport WA. Most guys think they are trash fish. Guys on the boat gave me their cod

Trash? Surely you are kidding? And I have never seen or heard of a black cod being caught on a WA charter... or other for that matter. They are very different from other cod...

I hear of guys trying to sport fish for black cod. A long way down to 900-1200ft though.

I got one in under 250ft once, although they are definitely usually a LOT deeper.

There area few places I know of where they can be caught in shallow water, even on the surface. But they are always smaller fish, maybe 5-6 pounds tops. But no limit and when you get into them it can get ridiculous!

Those boards are 12" for reference. We had another spot where we would longline and get them every once in a while, about the same size as that one. Up until a pacific sleeper shark moved in and started eating them all off of the longline. We caught that sucker, talk about ugly! That was down on the east side of Baranof.

Back to smoking pike ;-) I just did a batch last Tuesday. Brined frozen fillets overnite, and it was a bit long - fish came out a bit salty. I have patted fish dry, blown them dry, but have never gotten northern to form a pellicle, and have given up. Skin on, skin off, not much difference, but it is easier to fillet the skin off than to remove it afterward. I cold smoke, and am using apple these days. I spray my racks with pam or equivalent so meat sticks less. 2 hrs of smoke is enough. 3 is a bit smokier, but not enough to bother with. To solve the cooking and preservation problem, I cut pieces and put them into pint canning jars. Can them at 11 psi for 90 minutes. The fork bones go away - which yields more meat from the over abundant hammer handles. The only problem i have with these is when a jar falls open the contents seem to evaporate regardless of the temperature, humidity or number of people around. Give it a try - it will turn a waste fish into gold!

Like I have said repeatedly, if a recipe says to brine for more than 90 minutes they are freaking clueless... The over-salting does not exist and the texture is completely different.

Properly smoked the skin is a complete non-issue.

I have smoked a lot of pike and many other white fish and never had a problem getting a pellicle. Set up a fan and you will not have a problem either. It is the single most important step in the smoking process.

Art, I brine about twice as long but with about 1/2 the density. Next batch I will try the 90min time with your density. A time saving is a good thing.

I think my smoke generator works. Still too hot inside the box though with it sealed up, it is over 80 degrees outside today though and it is sitting directly on concrete in full sun, so I am sure that is heating it up. I filled that little box up about 1/3 of the way full to see how long it will run.

I've put a ton of fish in the smoker and honestly, its tough to screw up.

1. Just realize that everyone likes something different so take advice with a scoop of salt! Some like fish that's hard, dry, & salty, while others like moist & mild. Thickness of the fillets or fish should be kept in mind. If you've got an assortment of fillet thicknesses, then you'll have something for everyone so don't worry about it. You can let those thin pieces get over-salted in the brine or dry out in the smoker, and let the other thicker pieces be the opposite. You'll get the hang of it. Experiment until you get what YOU want.

2. I use a dry brine. I've done it overnight, and 24 hours. Nobody has been able to tell a difference. A wet brine would be a different story since you can't control it as well. A dry brine lets you sort the fillets and apply lighter amounts of the mix on the thinner pieces and heavier amounts on the thicker pieces. Flip once during the brine.

3. What I think makes a bigger difference than brine time, is amount of brown sugar. I started with more brown, and have substituted with white sugar. Too much brown sugar for too long seems to affect the flavor, to me.

4. I use Kosher salt, white sugar, and brown sugar. Sprinkle on fillets that are sorted by thickness. Some like to test the flesh after brining but before smoking... its basically lox (talking salmon here).

5. Definitely let the pellicle form! This is what keeps the fats, juices, & oils in the fish and the reason why you need to do this crucial step.

6. Start low and slow, and raise temp as you go. Pull pieces as needed. I use alder and apple for fish, but I don't think you can go wrong here.

Jason

Sorry, but I have to say that is the worst advice I have seen in quite some time on smoking fish.

You have different degrees of salinity because you have no control over the system and brine too long.

You expect people to poke around in the fish tasting different pieces until they find one they like?

Shaking my head...

I have tried a fan, but according to my notes it was mid-80's and very high humidity. I allowed it two hours to go, but no pellicle. How long do you let it go?

I use 2 2 X 6 on ends with fans blowing each direction about 6 hrs around 50 f and get a very good pellicle. Dry to touch. But not much humidity here. I usually wait till it cools in the fall to smoke fish, prefer to freeze salmon first to kill things.

I smoke carp with pressure treated framing lumber shavings and sawdust, with chunks of RR ties, thrown in.
Brine in left over pickle juice. But NEVER for more than 2 days.
Then I sell the carp to Costco……………………….

In Anchorage…………………..they think it is cod.

Now that is funny!

Yes,
Everthing getting kinda serious.

On another note . Do you get to partake in the Copper River Reds. harvest?
Best,
Chuck

I have gotten in on Copper River reds many times and have access to about all I want. Kenai River dipnet reds are plenty good for my uses and I should be able to put up my needs in the next week or so.

I also smoke quite a bit of silver salmon.

It never ceases to amaze how far people will go to produce schit and call it smoked salmon...

Funny schit, cisco. I wouldn't want to be downriver on that supply chain.

Gonna keep my eye on Costco.

I think you need to pay more attention. Re-read what I wrote. A dry brine allows you to control salinity by how much you apply.

When you use a wet brine, you have no control other than time. Time is the only control you have with the wet method. A dry brine allows you to control salt and time.

And, what "you" like and what "I" like isn't necessarily what the "OP" likes. There's some experimentation until the beginner finds what they want. After a batch or two, he'll figure out what "he" likes, not what you tell him to like. Just make a batch and see what is preferred. You must have assumed that I suggested that every batch be made willy-nilly.

Sitka, I've enjoyed many of your posts. But why you're getting spun-out over smoked fish is beyond me. Anyway, try a dry brine and it'll take care of your over-brining issues

As I have posted before I dry-brined salmon for a long time. And to do that I can tell you exactly how much salt I used per pound of salmon and the differences between species when doing it. If you do not know exactly how much salt you are using you are guessing and that does not produce good fish.

You started out saying it was "tough to screw up." I disagree because I have seen so much that was awful. Making a good batch of smoked salmon once by very specific directions will give a new smoker a stating point with reliable standards which can be adjusted if desired.

I went to wet brine because I have far more control and every bit of surface area gets the same amount of salt, every time. Adjusting the sugar is easy if you want sweeter fish. Adding other flavors is also easy with a little attention. I suspect my smoking salmon history is a bit deeper than you realize...

And more than one poster on this thread has had my smoked fish...

Why does it matter to me? Because there are a bunch of folks here that just have to give advice that is going to cause others grief. And I am not going to let it go without explaining what is wrong with their plan.

Sorry if I stepped on your toes, but if it saved someone from some wasted fish it was worth it. At least to me.

Pete, sorry I missed this earlier. Around here somewhere I have the studies done in Kodiak on brining... it is pretty dry, pun intended. For your purposes texture is not the same problem as in kippering.

The flesh itself is the limiting factor on how fast the salt moves in. Make brine hypertonic and maximum speed is achieved. The pellicle forming time allows the salt to equalize through the fish, too.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree Sitka, but I appreciate the extra info

A wet brine adds water to the fish. Its the only way the salt gets into the flesh. This water dilutes the natural flavor. And you're right, the longer you brine in a wet solution the more problems it can create. If you cook wet brined meat fast, like a roast, it can actually make the meat moister than non-brined meat... because the wet brine has added water to the meat.

But more water is not what we want for smoked fish. A wet brine adds water to the fish (but will eventually get removed in slow/low smoking). A dry brine does not. It actually pulls water from the fish. And that is the objective in the first place, to dry the fish.

A 90-minute wet brine is also misleading as no mention was made of the thickness of the pieces. Thin pieces can get brined throughout the flesh, whereas thicker pieces will not.

That said I think a wet brine is fine. I just prefer a dry brine myself. I've made smoked fish with dry brine and wet brine and both can work fine. For meat like a roast, I prefer a wet brine and its amazing what you can do with it. But what I've learned is that everyone in my family and my friends that have me smoke their fish likes the fish smoked a little differently. Some like it drier and saltier, and others like it more moist. One style doesn't satisfy everyone.

Let people experiment with smoked fish. Its not the end of the world