Thread: Smoking Fish / Meats

red cedar only.

red cedar is ok for hot smoking but make sure it is solid wood and has no rot or bark as these will taint the food.

Thanks weisyboy.

What about Vegemite?

some of the best meat I ever ate, was smoked in a webber with western red cedar

mesquite? sp? is a timber is used a lot in the US and you can buy it in bags at big BBQ shops. Aparently it is a weed in Australia though I am told turners like it.

I.ve heard of mesquite re smoking.

I think that we are all looking for ways to use up our shavings. BTW how fine/coarse should shavings be? Should it just be dust in a tray with heat under it?

Originally Posted by prozac

I.ve heard of mesquite re smoking.

I think that we are all looking for ways to use up our shavings. BTW how fine/coarse should shavings be? Should it just be dust in a tray with heat under it?

prozac, shavings are ok as long as you can choke the fire to the point where it only smokes. I have just recently had my first try with my cold smoker. worked like a dram. I smoked some salmon using mostly apple wood mixed with some tassie oak. These were shavings. The apple wood i put through the thicknesser. No problems. Smoked the fish for 12 hours and it tastes real good. I soaked it in a brine solution of salt and brown sugar for 12 hours, gave it a good rinse in fresh water, rubbed on some olive oil and sprinkle of dill, back in the fridge overnight and into the smoker. Had some tonight with a mix of soy sauce and wasabe - beeeeutiful! What is not eaten can be vacuum packed and frozen. Keeps for a long time. Mybe I'll have a go asmoking the xmas ham? bacon? sausages? No! i have been orderd to get the other 6 salmon in the freezer smoked. Bl22dy hell, I will have to buy another thicknessesr just for the smoker.

in the webber cook book it shows how to smoke cheese and tastes bloody good too. used jarrah to smoke it.

Cold smoking? I wonder if my tips would work thereabouts. It's not "fast food", though .

We usually cold smoke sea salmons and sea trouts. Those are species having a bit more fat in their flesh, making them very suitable for cold smoking. Normal catch-size salmon is about 3-7 kg (up to 25kg or so).

For cold smoking, salmon is at first cut and boned lengthwise into two fillets and wiped dry. The fillets are rubbed with a mixture of about 50g sea salt and 20g of white sugar per kilo of fish. The fillets are then put into fridge for overnight (at least 8 hours anyway).

The cold smoking gear we use is basically a full size fridge, fully operational and running during cold smoking. It is adjusted at "warmest" in our case, taking temp inside around 10-12 Celsius degrees. The fridge is not particulary designed to cold smoking, only designated . Otherwise it's a common fridge.

Smoke generator device is basically a electrical heating resistor (I wonder if the term is correct in english) of 12V/30W power, like the one in the picture.

It is set on the fireproof brick, connected with a power source and a 4-5 cm thick cross cutted slice of alder is put on top of it. The resistor produces enough surface heat to make the wood to smoke.

Some guys have used 40W soldering iron for this. Suitable holes are drilled in the piece of wood and the soldering iron is stuck in one of them. Should be smoke soon, and it works allright.

( There is some really high tech homemade cold smoking systems. Some of the devices them guys have wired up will send an alarm to you mobile phone if the temp rises too close to 30 deg C. Yes, it's a damn nokialand . )

Fish fillet surfaces are dried (wipe them dry with a knife edge) and then hanged freely by a thread in the upper part of the fridge, and the smoker is on the bottom of the fridge. Those kind of fish fillets will take about 12-24 hours of smoking, depends on temp and if more smoke aroma is wished. It's good to occasionally check out the wood and replace it time to time.

There should be no open fire of course, and generally the temperature is kept at max 20-25 degrees of Celsius. If the temp gets over 32 deg C, the albumin (? not much any biochemist ) starts to coagulate, and result is really no good.


There is two schools in cold smoking this way, others say that you should ventilate the fridge to remove the excess smoke, and others say that keep the fridge closed. Tried both ways, there is some kind of difference but can' t really say. Cold smoked fish is good anyway .

I haven't tried to prepare cold smoked meat, but I have heard the same gear works there. There is usually darker meat treated this way, like game. Also you should be able to use higher temperatures up to 40-50 C. It should resemble preparing stuff like smoked ham or similar. Some barbecue guys put the steaks there for a few hours before cooking.

Some pics on very similar system as ours. This is a commercial manufacturer. Sorry, in finnish only. http://www.savusampo.fi/index_tiedos...avustimena.htm

kippis,

sumu

Thanks sumu, hadn't thought of using an actual fridge. Brilliant, as your use of an element. Looks like you guys are right into this cold smoking.

Oh, it's nothing .

"Hot" smoked fish is a bit more common hereabouts. A lot simpler gear, just a some mild steel bin over the fire, suitable wood chips on the bottom to make smoke and fish set on the broiling grill or just stringed up to the lid bottom. But it really is an art, too. Both my dad and my father-in-law are complete jedi masters in smoking foodstuff, both hot and cold.

About fishes good for smoking, the common ones are salmon, trout, whitefish and very common is baltic herring, sometimes bream. Anyway, fish species with a bit more fat in their flesh. They won't dry up too much during the process.

I'd like to hear more about food smoking thereabouts. We use generally only salt/sugar mixtures for spicing the fish before smoking. I wonder if you guys use any herbs or other spices to apply on fish before smoking?

kippis,

sumu

sumu, after the fish have been in the sugar/salt mixture and rinsed clean, I sprinkle the fillet with some drie dill and rub in some virgin olive oil. then it goes in the fridge over night and then into the cold smoker for about 12 hours. Tastes real good. You can use any herb or spice to your liking. Have a go and see what you think.

Hello Ernknot,

Yes, dill both dried and fresh is known hereabouts' too. Olive oil must make the difference here. Because it is essentially fat it undoubtly takes really good smoke aroma and smoothens sometimes sharp edges of herbs. I have tried out dill alone, and just alone that way it made a bit too "metallic" (? I lack descriptive vocabularity) nuance in the smoked fish.

Ernknot, Thanks for that olive oil tip , should have figured out that by myself .

By the way, have you ever tasted the salted fish before going to smoking? In Scandinavia and Finland it's frequently eaten like that. Salt, sugar, (fresh) dill, maybe some white and black pepper and a few drops of lemon, keep overnight in the fridge, take it out and wipe dry. Then cut some thin slices on the buttered (dark) bread. Not actually sushi, but kinda raw spiced or rawpickled. I would eat that all the time . Salmon, trout and whitefish is generally prepared in this raw spicing way.

kippis,

sumu

that would work for me because i love sashimi dipped in a sauce made from wasabi and soy.

Originally Posted by sumu

By the way, have you ever tasted the salted fish before going to smoking?

sumu

Sumu, i suppose that would be similar to rollmop (herring)? Delicious.
Did you see my post above re salting and drying the fish? Skin and cut into cubes. Rub salt all over and place in fridge for 24 hrs. Rinse off salt and pat dry. Dry in sun with mesh cover over to keep out flies, or on very low heat in an open oven or similar. Sumu, you could probably use the smoking fridge for this with the temp up a bit.

When the fish is dry it is chewy like jerky. Great with beer.

prozac