Smoked Fish ( Brine Recipe and Smoking Directions)

Mama's Kitchen (Hope)'s Note:

This is a long time family recipe that was recently shared with me. Looking for something different to do with fish? This is it! We usually plate this and allow everyone to serve themselves. Wonderful fresh off the smoker as well as COLD from the refrigerator as you would smoked salmon, regardless of they type of fish used. After smoking this will keep for about a week in the refrigerator. I do not care for oily types of fish done this way but many prefer them. I like to smoke whitefish, salmon, perch, or trout. Feel free to use any fish you prefer. Plan AHEAD! Need to brine for about 12 hours and smoke for about 6-8.

• Total Time: 6 hrs 20 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 6 hrs

Ingredients:

Yield: 1 batch

• 3 -5 lbs fish, roughly

Brine

• 1 gallon water
• 1 1/3 cups canning salt
• 2/3 cup brown sugar

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients very well until sugar is disolved.
2. Split the fish into halves and soak them for about 12 hours (more or less) in the refrigerator.
3. Prepare your fire using charcoal and a mix of old birch (with bark removed) or apple wood or you can use just charcoal.
4. Place fish in smoker and allow to smoke for about 6-8 hours for smoking, depending on the outside temperature and how hot your smoker gets of course.

Reviews

[under12parsecs]

This was phenomenal on the gorgeous King Salmon my DH caught. I made the brine as directed but added a couple of T of garlic salt, let it sit for 24 hours and then we hot smoked it for 2 hours using applewood chips. AMAZING flavor and texture! Thank you Mama!!!!

[Chef #595890]

same brine mix i use,but i add garlic and onion powder.

[Kimberly Annette]

Lovely! DH caught his first fish today (a gorgeous 2lb steelhead trout), & thanks to your old family recipe, it tasted supreme. We cut the brine time to a few hours, but it had soaked enough flavor for our taste, since we enjoy the hint of freshwater flavor. If you want to eliminate more "taste evidence" of where the fish came from, you should definitely soak it the full 12hrs, as the recipe calls for. After soaking, we tried two different herb/spice rubs. Both used coarse ground pepper and sea salt (we pushed one granule into the center of each piece of fish). One rub used tarragon, basil, and marjoram, the other used curry powder and coriander. Both were fantastic when blended with the smoke flavor. Also, we used maple wood from our tree that we had to cut down this year, along with store-bought wood chips made for the grill. I'd like to experiment with different types of woods to see which has the best taste. Ours certainly brought pleasure to our palates!