Hi all,

I have just smoked my first trout. I caught it yesterday, 5lb bow from Meon (pics and review to follow!), gutted and fillited it last night and smoked on my Weber kettle BBQ using Mesquite wood chips today. My neighbours must have thought I was mad firing up the BBQ in minus 1 degs!
I think I may have over done the cooking time and amount of wood chips but even so, it tastes fantastic!

Has anyone else got tips, timings and recomendations when smoking trout?

Regards
FbS

I use a Snowbee hot smoker, as my original home made one became too blackened and generally disgusting even for me.

I reckon on about 30 mins for a 2lb fish - and then I turn them into a pate...using cream cheese, lemon juice and dill.

Freezes and keeps v.well and tastes delicious.

Can be jazzed up with horse-radish too.

If you're interested I'll post a few more recipe details.

Smoking is fun - also means that any frozen fish eventually get cleared out and turned into something delicious.

if you are into smoking trout and want to do it yourself the book to read is Home smoking and curing by Keith Erlandson. The home smoker I built is based on his ideas,,,

I've never smoked anything before but it sounds interesting and I've got a huge barbecue... How do I do it?! lol Is it just a matter of lighting the barbecue and then throwing on some chips and closing the lid down or is there more to it?

Well thats pretty much what I did! I placed a foil tray under the fish with the hot coals around the tray, put the pre soaked wood chips on the coals and put the trout, skin side down, above the tray. Oh, I also put water into the tray as well as advised on the Weber website. I then put the lid on and let it smoke for about 15 mins. I guess its trail and error with the fish you are smoking and how smoked you want your fish to be.

I would be interested in some of your receipes either if you PM'd me or on this thread, thanks!!

Sounds interesting thanks, I think I'll give it a go!

What's wrong with grilling at -1? I grill all year around as well, -20? No problem, it just takes a little longer.

I've used my Weber grill as a smoker for years now, I've done turkeys, pork shoulder, pheasants, venison cuts, various fish, etc.

What I've found is that it's very important to keep the grill as cool and keep the charcoal burning just so it's at the point where it's almost going out. The grill heats up rather quickly and gets well above proper smoking temps if I don't keep the fire very low.

So what I've found works pretty well is to use only 6 or 9 golf-ball sized briquettes of charcoal and I place them in an old bread pan. Use just enough charcoal to cover the bottom of the pan, don't heap it full! Light the coals and leave the lid off the grill until the coals are just getting started.

Then do as you did, soak the wood in water until it's very wet and put some chunks on top of the coals.

Now here's a point that I think would help you out with smoking trout. Don't place the trout above the coals. If you do that, you're grilling the fish because the heat above even a small amount of charcoal will grill the trout instead of smoking it.

Instead, place the bread pan off to one side and put the fish on the other side so it's not above the hot coals.

Then very carefully regulate the temperature using the bottom vents. The way I do it is to keep the top (lid) vent closed and open one vent just a tiny crack. Then keep the lid closed except to occasionally check progress and add charcoal only as necessary to keep the fire going. Add wood only when the other pieces are almost completely burned up.

Cook the trout just until it's done. It's way better, I've found, to error on the side of under-done. You can always finish it in the microwave or oven with no loss of flavor, but if you overdo it, you're stuck with tough fish or meat.

Even with careful regulation of the fire, I can only get my grill down to about 250 degrees, so it's hot smoking, but it still tastes really good.

If you don't have a lot of fish to smoke, throw a couple of seasoned pork chops on with the fish. The chops will take longer, but as long as you've got the rig fired up, no since wasting the space.

Grouse

1 pack of cream cheese per 2lb of trout (I use Philadelphia low-fat, how health conscious is that) - approx
1 lemon per 2 lb of trout
As much dill as you like
Capers - optional
Salt/pepper - optional
butter - optional
horseradish - optional


First smoke your trout, then take it off the bone and remove the skin and all dodgy grey bits. Remove as many bones as poss.
Put the flesh into a bowl, add the cream cheese and lemon juice.
[when you get into experimentation mode you may want to add some horseradish at this point too]
Mix thoroughly (I just use a large fork - a mixer would liquefy it too much) until the flakes of flesh are broken up.
Consistency should be stiff.

Add dill, you may also want to add salt and pepper at this point. Stir again
I've also started adding capers, both chopped and whole. this also works well
generally, as required to taste.

Pack into container for either freezing or eating - the tighter you pack it in, the better it seems to be; results in a good pate-like consistency.
The very thing we are trying to achieve!

The original recipe suggested pouring a layer of molten butter over the top which acts as a seal - but I've stopped doing that.

Eat with thin slices of brown bread (soda bread is good).

Also works well with mackerel - but definitely replace the dill with horseradish.

You'll get much better result when smoking, if you put the fillets or fish in brine first (or dry cure).

After couple of hrs (depending on strength of brine) give them a rinse then let them dry.

when dry enough you will see a haze appear on the fish, this will hold the smoke flavour

Has already mentioned smoke over a low heat, you can cool the coals with slices of lemon.