I have been busy with work so I haven't had too much time to smoke fish. I have done two experiments which I will pass on to you guys. The results have been a big improvement over my soggy fish. For those that haven't followed this story, my first two loads of fish came out mushy. After cooking in the smokette, the fish was kind of watery. Some of this may have been due to the lack of draft in the smokette and, at least in one case, the fish may not have been the greatest (i.e. not horrible, but not the best quality). More details are in the thread "Help, Fish in my smokette".
Now to the new stuff. The first batch of fish were rainbow trout. The fillets were of good quality. I brined three fillets. Before brining I skinned one fillet and cut slits in the skin of the two other fillets. This was done with a razor blade. The slits were 1/2 to 1 inch long and were cut at about 3/8" intervals. The idea was to allow the liquid that was causing the soggy fish to drain. After brining, the fillets were rinsed briefly in fresh water, patted dry and then allowed to air dry for two hours. They were then smoked at 200 degrees for 1 1/2 hrs. After smoking I let them cool at room temp for an hour, checked them for mushiness (they were fine!!!!) and placed them in the refrigerator overnight. As far as texture, they were great! The overall verdict is that they were pretty good. Consider my bias - I prefer smoked salmon and only did this as an experiment to figure out how to get rid of the mushiness! Overall the experiment was a great sucess!
I figured this required a real test. I got some Atlantic salmon (farmed and not ideal), because I did not want to use the wild Pacific salmon I have until I work out the method. In any case, this was a pretty thick fillet that was taken from near the tail (i.e. the caudal peduncle area for you fisheries types). The skin was cut with a razor as described above so that any liquid could drain. The fillet was brined, rinsed and air dried as above. I then smoked the fish for 3 hours at 200 degrees and then jacked up the temperature setting to 250 degrees for about 45 minutes. After cooling at room temperature for 1 hour and checking moisture content (NO mushiness!!!) the fish was refrigerated. I was worried that the fish would be too moist because the Atlantic salmon (farmed) are usually very oily. However, I picked out this fillet because it seemed pretty lean. In any case, this experiment was also a success, in fact too much of a success because the fish was a bit dry! It still was pretty good!
However, my question was "Can I smoke fish in my smokette and NOT get mushy fish because of the liquid accumulation?" I was concerned because there is no draft through the smokette and I thought that might be contributing to the texture problem I was having. In the way the fish was cooking, it was accumulating lots of liquid. I thought that this was the result of a lack of air flow and that under these circumstances the skin was acting to retain the moisture (water and fish oil) and make the fish mushy. Anyway, this problem was solved by piercing the skin.
I hope this helps anyone having similar problems with their unit.
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