Smoked Catfish Advice

[thirdeye]

I guess the title says it all. A buddy brought be a bag of frozen fillets from South Dakota and I have never smoked catfish myself.. My experience is all with trout, salmon, and steelhead. I need some pointers for catfish.

For salmon and the like, I currently use a dry cure, a rinse and short soak, an overnight rest followed by 4 or 5 hours in my Little Chief.

[Big Dave2]

I guess the title says it all. A buddy brought be a bag of frozen fillets from South Dakota and I have never smoked catfish myself.. My experience is all with trout, salmon, and steelhead. I need some pointers for catfish.

For salmon and the like, I currently use a dry cure, a rinse and short soak, an overnight rest followed by 4 or 5 hours in my Little Chief.

Personally I don't see a reason to actually slow smoke catfish. It's not like the fish are tough and you need to slow cook it to get it tender.

I did some on the grill this summer where I used the minion method to keep the temp down to around 300-350 degrees. I put butter on the bottom of a large tin foil pan and filled it with the catfish fillets that were coated in whatever fish breading we had at the time mixed with Cajun seasoning. Just grilled them until they were done with a little apple wood mixed in with the coals for some smoke flavor. The fish seems to me to absorb smoke easily so I'm not sure if 5 hours of smoke might be over-kill, at least for my taste buds.

Grilled catfish fillets are hard to beat in my opinion!

[thirdeye]

For flavor smoking I agree with you. I'm shooting for curing it first and then smoking. Here is one of my trout fillets that has been cured and smoked, I'm sort of going for something like this.

[pushbutton]

Might want to consider cutting out the mud line and belly meat, depending on the system it is from and how large the fish is, this can help take out some foulness..... if present. If you do not already know it is a "medium" oily fish. Can't really see adding much else in the way of giving you smoking advice

[Big Dave2]

For flavor smoking I agree with you. I'm shooting for curing it first and then smoking. Here is one of my trout fillets that has been cured and smoked, I'm sort of going for something like this.

I'm sure it will taste great but I've never tried curing catfish. All I do know is that for me , catfish has a distinctive flavor and not much enhancement is needed.

[jentz]

I do lots of cats on the grill and smoker Flats and channels,Grill is skin on and lots of quick heat,dont take long for it to get done and its tasty,use any rub or flavoring you like.

Smoking them is what I found the best, smoke is the same as Lox (smoked salmon) light smoke so the fish flavor stands out, and the smoke is background.These get a salt, suger and any flavor you like LIGHT tho! wet brine 12 -24 hours drip dry and let set so the pectin forms nicly and the skin is on so your not picking fish pieces out of the smoker.Try it then adjust to what you like.

[Alagnak]

I've done chan cats a few times with the same wet brine I use for salmon and trout. It turns out 'ok' to me. Most people think it's great- it's several steps down IMO from salmon and trout but something on a cracker to wash down with a beer anyway. If I have one that's hooked bad it usually goes in a pickling batch.