Well, I got my smokette from the brown truck on Monday....I seasoned it promptly..of course! Here is my first batch and what I did...those of you following my plight know that I bought the smoker to smoke rainbow trout so that I could distribute them to my clients at the fishing pond...for money of course!
I had some fresh/thawed rainbow trout, if that makes sense! 1 small 1 medium, 2 pounds total perhaps? Both fish are whole but with heads gone. Not butterflied or de-boned.
I filled a gallon sized ziplock bag halfway with water, added this:
1/4 cup of soy/teriyaki marinade (kikkoman)
1/4 cup of non iodized sea salt
1/8 cup of montreal seasoning
1/2 cup of suga
I put the fish in the brine for exactly 2.5 hours.
I took them out and air dried for exactly 1.5 hours....i was very impatient at this point!
Smoked at 200-225 for 3.5 hours with 2 ounces of apple wood.
The edges were dry like I like it, almost a fish jerky that I grew accustomed to living in Japan. The thick sections were awesome, not too dry, not too wet. The skin peeled right off and the spine and bones came out very easy leaving me with de-boned chunks that I put on crackers and then since it was 930pm, I wrapped the rest up and will take the cold stuff golfing today!
Very, very good. I can't wait to experiment with different stuff and dry brines and etc......wow! thanks cookshack for this forum!!!!!
BTW, from reading other posts, I half expected this fish to be mushy but it wasn't at all, and I hardly even dried it out, no pellicle at all. Maybe because is is freshwater and very fresh, right from my pond? Hmmmmmmmm
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