Fished Ice Off Yesterday ~ Will Smoke Trout Tomorrow

[thirdeye]

There were a few islands of ice left and some of the coves were still socked in and slushy, but I like spring fishing. I kept three nice ones and I'll cure them later today and smoke them tomorrow.

[reinhard1]

so that's what open water look's like. man that looks nice where you live. those rainbows will be tasty for sure. good luck.

[1DIRTBALL]

Beautiful fish thirdeye! What kind of presentation were you using? Also, what kind of wood do you use for your smoking? I've smoked 'bow's before and they are food for the God's, eh? 1DIRTBALL

[thirdeye]

Well, I wish I could say something western like "I quick-stripped a huge streamer off the end of my 10 weight fly rod".... but my presentation yesterday was some Powerbait on a #12 golden Tru-Turn fine wire hook, rigged with a slip sinker. Heheheee. I set up my gear, then proceeded to inventory my lake fishing bag, all my reels, and cleaned out my fanny pack, then made a list of stuff to buy this week. Then I had lunch and a Dr Pepper. It was a good day.

And yes, smoked trout is one of my favorites. Of course so is smoked salmon and steelhead. I pretty much use alder for the delicate flavor, and because it's easy to control. But some cherry will find it's way in to the last pan of wood because I really think it anchors the color.

[reinhard1]

those look perfect. what did you use for the brine ect. good luck.

[thirdeye]

I use a dry cure and it takes about 6 hours for larger trout fillets, or overnight for a side of salmon. This is for skin-on fillets, skinless ones can be cured from both sides in half the time. I like the skin on ones much better.

thirdeye's Dry Cure For Salmon & Trout

This makes enough Dry Cure for about 10 pounds of fish:

1 cup kosher salt

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground ginger (I prefer to grind this myself from cracked ginger)

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

½ teaspoon pulverized bay leaf

On a cutting board, sprinkle a little of the salt onto the chopped garlic, and mash to a paste with the point of a knife. In a small bowl, combine the garlic mixture with the remaining salt, the sugar, ginger, pepper and bay leaf. Mix this very well. Extra can be stored in the freezer.

Sprinkle about 1/8” of rub onto a piece of plastic wrap, place fillets on top and seal with the seam on top. The wrapped fillets can be stacked. (I put them on a shallow tray just in case one leaks). Refrigerate 6 to 8 hours. NOTE: For skinless fillets, sprinkle a layer of the dry cure on the top side as well. Skinless fillets or thinner fillets will require less cure time.

The moisture and oils in the fish will liquefy the dry cure and make a syrup which will cure the fish. After curing, rinse the fish very well under cold running water, rubbing gently to remove the syrup. Blot dry with paper towels and put on a racks to air dry until tacky, at least 2 hours OR put back into the refrigerator for about 6 hours to overnight. (Salmon should be seasoned before drying with black pepper, ground garlic or Montreal Steak Seasoning or whatever you like.

Here is what the syrup looks like after the curing.

For smoking, brush or spray a light coat of olive oil or Pam on the skin side of the fish and on your smoker rack. Place fish in smoker with the skin side on the rack and hot smoke at 150 – 190 degrees (grate temp) for 2 to 3 hours, using equal parts of alder wood and apple wood. Check once or so to make sure the skin is not sticking to the racks. (spray skin side with oil if it starts to stick) Switch to cherry wood and maple wood for 1 or 2 hours. This will give the salmon a nice red color. Smoke until fish just flakes (about 130° to 140° internal). These times are for thick fillets 3 to 4 lbs., adjust for thinner fillets or for trout. I have done it using skinless fillets, by laying the fish on pieces of oiled foil 1/2" larger than each fillet, and not turning.

TIP: For smaller fillets a water pan under the fish will prevent it from cooking too fast. Ice in the water pan works great also.

Serve hot or chilled. This will keep in the fridge for 4 or 5 days, but it very seldom lasts that long. Here are some steelhead fillets, I like to keep the fish slightly on the moist side, but you can smoke longer for a drier product.

[reinhard1]

i have never dryed cured before. your step by step with photo's are awesome to say the least. very helpfull. thank you for this for i will try this with my first rainbows this year. man that looks good. good luck.

[thirdeye]

I try to buy Alaskan wild caught salmon, but in Wyoming markets it's not always availavle. However, for smoking the Atlantic farm raised has a much better level of fat and the on-sale price is around $5 a pound. That is good to experiment with.

Just watch your cure times in relation to the thickness of trout or salmon. also that overnight refrigerated rest after rinsing really helps with the texture.

[Pooh]

i can taste it by looking at it... looks wonderful thirdeye

[reinhard1]

third eye i will follow every point. hope to catch some coho and kings this year on superior also. hopefully i will get a couple of kamloops on the north shore also. they run 4 to 8 lbs. but also i get rainbows 14 to 18 inces out of some lakes also. i think i will try butterflying the smaller ones and do the skin up method also. thanks again. good luck.

[NoWiser]

Oh man that looks good. Have you ever tried this with lake trout? I have a few fillets in the freezer that I need to do something with before I head back up to Canada at the end of May. I think I may have to give this a shot.

[thirdeye]

I have not. And I prefer using fresh fish over thawed ones, mainly because the texture will be better using fresh. If you thaw some to try, do it in the fridge over a day or so instead of a quicker method.

[thirdeye]

It rained last night and turned to snow all day today.... so I postponed everything one day. (good thing I looked at the forecast!!) Here are the de-boned fillets following a 5 hour cure. They will rest overnight in the beer fridge and I'll smoke them tomorrow.

[pushbutton]

Have never used a dry cure either, could you give a brief description of the difference, or when or why you would use it. thanks!

[thirdeye]

A wet cure (often called a pickle, or a sweet pickle if it has sugar on board) is basically a stronger version of a brine. I call them a curing brine, verses the weaker version that I will call a flavor brine. Often when wet curing things like bacon, ham or if you are corning a brisket there are some nitrates added to the liquid. Usually fish cures don't need nitrates. So, you have a salt water liquid, with some sugar, herbs, spices.... maybe some beer, or fruit juice or some aromatics like onion slices or garlic. You submerge the fish and over time the liquid will exchange with the liquid within the cells of the meat. As this osmosis reaction takes place the flavors in your pickle are now in the fish. The salt (and nitrates if you used them) changes the texture of the meat, slightly alters the color and adds some flavor. When you are wet curing something larger like a ham, some of the liquid is injected into the meat to speed up the process.

With a dry cure, you still use the salt, sugar, seasonings etc., and the same exchange takes place but without the liquid pickle, the cure first has to draw out some liquid from the meat, which mixes with the cure and is re-absorbed into the meat. So it kind of creates it's own brine, or in the case of my fish cure a syrup. Common dry cured products are hard salami, Canadian bacon, jerky, or country hams. In the old days all kinds of things were preserved in salt and packed in barrels. This is really a hard cure, and many of these things would be to salty for us today.

The four advantages where I like a dry cure on fish is the ease of application, room needed in the fridge, texture of the finished product, and color. If I only want to cure a couple of fillets it takes about 10 minutes to prep them (provided I have some cure mixed in the freezer) and I only need a platter or small tray instead of a small bucket. Wet cured products hold more water than dry cured products so the texture is a little different. I always get better color from dry cured fish than I do from wet cured fish.

These are peppercorns on top, not capers.

[reinhard1]

thanks for posting those great pictures along with explaining to us the diffence in a dry cure vs a wet cure. i'm excited to try this dry cure this year. thanks again. good luck.

[thirdeye]

Well, this batch is all done. Curing and resting time was about 11 hours. Smoking / cooking time was about 4-1/2 hours. I called it cooking time since I did move it into my oven during the last 45 minutes to get the internal temperature up to the level I wanted, which was 155° internal.

I'll wind up keeping 2 and giving the rest to my fishing buddies.

[reinhard1]

you do good work. looks great! good luck.

[Chef]

A picture is worth a thousand words...nicely done TE

[eyeguy 54]

Can I be you fishing buddy?? :>) Great info! Thx

[Grum]

Looks fantastic! Thanks for the great intro to the world of smoking and curing.

[Jim Almquist]

Just thought I would bring this back up now that people are starting to catch some fish that will be hitting the smokers. I will be brining a King tonight for the smoker tomorrow with your recipe.

[thirdeye]

Just thought I would bring this back up now that people are starting to catch some fish that will be hitting the smokers. I will be brining a King tonight for the smoker tomorrow with your recipe.

I hope you enjoy your salmon. Three of my fishing buddies were out over a Friday and Saturday two weeks ago and they kept 8 or 9 trout letting one guy have all the fillets to smoke. I went over and helped with wrapping them, then the following day I helped get the smokers ready and walked him through the process. This was his first time using a dry cure and they came out just right.... I had been telling him how easy it was.

[goblueM]

man that looks awesome... i've grilled using a dry cure but never smoked. i'm gonna try it out!

[Jim Almquist]

The salmon is brined and will go on the smoker tomorrow morning