I'm smoking a bakers dozen of trout today; many of them were caught yesterday, but most were caught over the course of a couple of ice fishing trips last winter, then carefully frozen in blocks of ice after cleaning. All are rainbow trout except for one nice, hard-fighting brook trout that my beautiful bride caught creek fishing yesterday in a great show of drift-fishing skill.

I used a variation of this brine:

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1 cup non-iodized salt*
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup soy sauce**
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. paprika
1 Tbsp. chili powder***
1 Tbsp. garlic salt (optional)****
1 Tbsp. onion powder
3 cups warm water

Mix all ingredients in warm water. Let the brine cool and add the fish. Brine for 4 or more hours. Rinse and air dry. Use 2 or 3 pan-fuls of Apple, Alder or Hickory flavor chips. Keep in the smoker until done. (5 to 7 hours.)

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Here were my variations:

*For some reason, I had no kosher salt, so I used 1/2 cup of coarse Mediterranean sea salt instead.

**I substituted teriyaki sauce in place of soy sauce.

***I substituted Old Bay seasoning, just beacuse.

****I tried a substitute of "Adobo Seasoning" from Goya, which is mostly garlic with added black pepper and oregano.

I brined the trout for about 4.5 hours, and they are currently sitting on racks developing their pellicles before smoking. I'll be using my front-loading Big Chief smokehouse for the actual smoking, and most likely a cherry/alder blend for the smoke itself.

I'm expecting the results to be good, as usual!

I try not to complicate my smoking. For two 4 lb rainbows I used 1.5 cups sea salt and 2/3 cups of maple syrup. I prefer the dry cure rather than soaking them in brine.

I put the individual filets in vacuum sealer bags and then rub the salt mixture onto them, then sealed the bags and keep them for 1-3 days, depending on my time availability. I find this draws a lot of water out of the filets and you end up with a firmer product that doesn't need smoking as long.

This is really a variation on the salt curing for Lox and you can actually eat it without smoking. But the smoking adds nice flavor.

I took some of this flaked into a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese and some crackers to a wine tasting the other night and got two marriage proposals.

I definitely want to try that, Bwana - if I would have had maple syrup on hand, it would have happened today, but there are more fish to be caught, so it can wait until next time!

That sounds really nice with the cream cheese - simple is best!

Here they are, going into the Big Chief:



It turns out, I have 12 instead of 13 (one too many beers when counting?), but it's all the same. I generally place the trout on the highest racks possible for the amount of fish I have, with the bigger ones on the lower rack(s) and the smaller ones placed as I go up. I also alternate their alignment and leave plenty of room between each fish/fillet/chunk for even smoke distribution.

The Big Chief should be "up to heat" by now - time to put the wood on to smoke. For this smoke I am using a blend of alder, apple and cherry, all of which I have found to be outstanding for trout.

You're smoking whole fish, so brining probably works better for that. I filet mine first.

Though if you packed the cure into the cavity and then sealed them it would likely work its way in pretty well.

Another variation is to mix sea salt, brown sugar and chopped fresh dill.

For bigger fish, I definitely fillet; but for these littler guys I simply hit the easy button.

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Another variation is to mix sea salt, brown sugar and chopped fresh dill.

I like that - a nice play on gravad lax!

This was definitely some good stuff - they all went pretty fast!

A few notes:

Temperature - If someone had a gun to my head, I would guess that the Big Chief seems to run in the 140 to 160 range, but I cannot confirm that. I'm not sure of the exact temperature, as the "Big Chief Smokehouse" does not have any temperature indicator, and I've never taken the time to measure it. Also, ambient temperatures, wind, humidity and other factors come into play, making it impossible to do anything consistent - so it's just something I never worried too much about. What I can say for sure is that it is NOT meant for things like barbecuing meat such as pulled pork brisket etc. IT can definitely add a smoked flavour to those and other meats, but it's not intended to give you a product such as what you would see from a barbecue pit. Having said that, it is the bee's knees for smoking fish, jerky, nuts and so forth, and I enjoy it very much for those "warm smoking" applications that are neither hot nor cold.

Note on salt - The original recipe seemed like a hellish amount of salt, even for me. Since I was using coarse sea salt, rather than flaked kosher salt, I cut the amount in half, and this seemed about right - no one in the family found it too salty, and everything seemed to come out good. This amount could probably be adjusted slightly downward, but please do keep in mind that it is only in the brine for 4 hours or so, so you do want enough salt to adequately do its osmosis and other brining-related voodoo.

Smoke - the smoke blend that I used was great, but any mild smoke will do the trick. I had about 3 hours of smoke on the fish, and could probably have gone with one more, to make it perfect.

Heads/Tails - I'm not too concerned either way in this regard - when preparing the fish for the brine, I generally cut the heads and tails off when smoking them whole, so as to fit in the bag/jar/whatever better, but just as often, I will leave them on. When smoking fillets rather than whole fish, I leave the skin on so that there is no sticking to the grate, and the smoked fish peels right off.

The Process - This is very much a subjective thing, depending on so many factors that it is difficult to quantify. What I aim to do is smoke for a desired length of time, then leave the fish in the unit, allowing the heat and the air-flow to continue to dry the fish a bit while it pushes the internal temperature of the fish up to 140, where the danger of any potential parasites is removed. Whedre "finished temperature" is concerned, I would be reluctant to take the fish beyond that point, as that would negatively impact the final product, in my opinion. Where "dryness" is concerned, I just go until the fish "feels" right, which is dryer than the 4 hours of smoke that it gets, but not really "dehydrated" or jerky-like - the aim, in my opinion, should be somewhere in-between, keeping an eye on finished temperature goals, as well. This is what has worked for me, but your mileage may vary, and I am open to discussion and suggestions where these factors are concerned.

Results - Delicious! As I said above, a little more smoke would have been great, but it certainly wasn't necessary in any burning way. Salt content seemed fine, and the flavours of the brine came through nicely. I fell asleep and let the Big Chief run quite a bit longer than I had intended to, so the "bellies" of the trout were pretty dry, but still perfectly edible. The "loins" along the back came out just about right.

What would I do different? Not much. A little more smoke, a little less time drying after smoking - that's about it.

Things that are to be smoked and frozen -- normally smoke first then freeze . Otherwise the meat tends to dry out as the cells are ruptured when thawing !Did you notice any difference between the frozen and fresh ?
Temperature should be carefully watched as you wanted to smoke not cook .

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Did you notice any difference between the frozen and fresh ?

I noticed no difference, but the fish that were frozen were packaged with care and frozen in solid blocks of ice, so they were about as good as can be, where quality is concerned.

Looking great, Tas. I don't keep rainbows any more, but if I did, I would want to smoke them. I have had great results smoking our kokanee.