Tell me how you do it?

Brine and smoke.

Salt and sugar for brine.

Alder and or fruit wood for smoke.

Yep usually brine mine in a garbage sack in the beer fridge for 2 days, rinse, Pat dry, smoke

I used to like to brine then smoke as well.

Now I just want the fresh fish flavor and a little hint of smoke so now I use cedar planks with indirect heat and toss a couple small chunks of wood on coals or flavorizer bars.

If Salmon I like Gravlox and then just very lightly smoke it. Or a Maple & Salt brine for a few hours and smoked until just dry. Other fish like Sturgeon, Mackerel, Catfish get brined and smoked longer till partially dry through out. After a couple of hours start sampling a small piece to see if it is to your liking. Warning if you have a beer and maybe bagels or crackers for each sampling you may not have much left by the time you reach perfection.

FatCity yes I liked grilled best but smoked for storage or snacking.

Canning salt, dark brown sugar, granulated garlic, maybe a shot or two of soy sauce and/or Wors.

I don't brine or marinate salmon and use alderwood to smoke.

3c Brown sugar
3/4c kosher salt

Cover fish and brine overnight. Remove from brine and rinse with cold water. Let air dry under a fan to form pellicle. Before pellicle is formed you can grind some course black pepper if you want, or red pepper flakes if you want some heat. I let the surface get slightly drier than tacky and then it goes into a big chief smoker. 2 pans of chips and then leave it in until its the consistency you like.

Easy peasy.

What fish are you going to smoke?

Uhhhhhh....how bout them Dodgers?

Store bought pollock, Canadian walleyes are too good just fried!!

Not something I’d try with pollock, but am excited to hear about your results!

I've never eaten any smoked fish. I don't really like it any way but fried.

Whitefish is good smoked, I don't know where I'd find any.

I bought some many years ago from Hale's fisheries on Eagle lake, Ontario. 7$ a pound, I fried those, nothing special about the whitefish that way.

You don't need much smoke. Light wood like alder is best.
I like to marinate salmon overnight in sugar/salt/lemon/dill zest then smoke. Not too much marinade or smoke. Salmon flavor should still show through the process.

If you have never eaten it, how do you know?

Pollock is very wet fish and you will want the skin on it. That is not the way it is usually sold.

Hypertonic brine of kosher salt and brown sugar, 2:3 cups of each per gallon.

With soft fish like pollock and black cod it is critical the brine be as cold as possible.

Brine for 90 minutes rinse under cold running water for less than a second, just enough to get the obvious stuff off the surface.

Place on smoker racks and use fans to dry the surface and form a pellicle. This is the single most important step and it is critical. Pollock must lose some water before it will produce a decent product. The pellicle must be glassy and stiff.

Put it in the smoker with very low heat and quite a bit of smoke. If it is more than about 100F the pellicle will probably crack and you just wasted your time... after an hour or so you can bring the temp a little over 100F for about an hour. The fish should not feel soft. If it does take it off the heat and put the fans back on it.

When it firms up you can put it back in the smoker. Go to 130 for an hour or so. Do not exceed 140.

When you take it out of the smoker you need to lay it on absorbent material like brown paper bags to cool. Then wrap loosely in paper towels and put in baggies in the frig.

I have smoked a lot of it and it takes some effort. It should be firm, flakey, and very good. It will be delicate and hard to handle.

Brining for more than 90 minutes does nothing good for the texture of fish. Studies at the Fish Tech Research center in Kodiak have shown it is the way to go.

Its pretty important

I've had it baked, broiled, grilled, but prefer it fried. Mostly what we have here that's worth eating is either crappie or catfish. I don't know any other way of cooking them, other than by frying.

Let's try this again, slow...

You don't know any other way of cooking them, yet list several ways you have had them other than fried... and do not like them smoked even though you have never had it that way...

???

Just jerking chain...

Thanks HEAPS folks, it looks like every thing else, it's not as simple as it looks.

Yeah I know. It’s a Southern thing, we like everything fried. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve never tried smoked fish, but after having eaten it other ways, I still prefer fried fish over anything else. I did eat some walleye when I was in South Dakota, that was either broiled or baked, and it was good............although not as good as a fried crappie. Maybe I need to broaden my horizons.

as far as i'm concerned the only way to eat whitefish is seasoned, slow baked, preferably over wood coals, or the same over charcoal with a bit of smoke added...or flat out smoked, which is delicious

*this is great lakes whitefish