Smoking Northern Pike

[WalleyeSlayer21]

Who has a recipe for Smoked northern?? Is it good..?

[eyeguy 54]

fillet, normal brine, smoke. let us know how you like it.

[WalleyeSlayer21]

Whats the brine?

[leechlake]

for brine I use water, non iodine salt and some brown sugar. I don't measure it just "wing" it to taste.

[WalleyeSlayer21]

Do u keep the pike full.. And just gut it and cut head off or what?

[shortfatguy]

You will want to do something to get the slime off of the skin. I would fillet the fish and pack the fillets in non-iodized salt (pickling salt) to absorb all the slime. Then rinse off the salt and you should have clean fillets with no slime. To make a brine add non-iodized salt to cold water until an egg floats in the mixture. Once an egg floats you have enough salt to cure the fish. Soak in the brine for 24 hours. You can add spices etc to the brine before soaking the fish. After 24 hours the fish is ready to smoke. Sprinkle some brown sugar on the fillets if you want to while smoking. The sugar will give it a glaze. Let us know how it turns out. I have smoked Bass and Blue gills before and they turned out good.

[Juneau4]

Depending on the size of the fish you leave it whole or split it, but either way leave the skin on or it will be very dry as northern is not an oily fish.

Brine:

1 gal water, 1 cup pickling salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 1tsp garlic salt, 1tsp allspice, 1 tsp pepper, heat this until salt ect. is dissolved and let cool, place fish in brine over night or up to 24 hrs, pat dry and let dry for another half hr. and smoke. Oh refrig. while in the brine in a non metallic container.

I use apple wood or cherry, but any wood that's not of the pine or cedar family will work. REMOVE BARK from wood. Good Luck.

[eyeguy 54]

basic easy brine.

1 quart cold water

3/8 cup table or pickling salt

OR

4 ounces of Kosher salt

3/8 cup brown sugar or white sugar