Fish smoking

[Landlord]

Anyone do it? Is it worthwhile and do you get "better" results than buying "professionally" smoked fish? Anyone smoke any other meats?

Thanks,
Phil.

[Pete Franklin]

Yes to cold smoking fish- Infact I just did a batch of trout. Is it better than proffesionally produced produce? it can be as good as the top stuff if you start with good quality fish and take care in the preparation. It is almosty always better than the cheap supermarket offerings which are just cured farmed fish with smoke essence added at the end.

[Landlord]

Lovely. Thank you.

Any favoured wood chips/combinations?

[Pete Franklin]

for salmon and trout I tend to use straight oak although i hear that a 1/2 and 1/2 between beech and oak is nice. for bacon i use applewood. I use dust rather than chips and use a ProQ cold smoke generator for long gentle cold smoking in a large kettle bbq either on cold days or overnight in the summer to avoid excess heat.

The cure of the fish is also important. I tend to brine the trout rather than dry cure as it gives more consistant texture and also takes less time(3hrs vs 12 hrs for example). you can alter the flavour of the finished product with different brine ingredients.

[blindswelledrat]

I prefer Benson and Hedges.
Sometimes I am so funny that my own cock aches.

[WCZ]

Landlord said:

Anyone smoke any other meats?

Thanks,
Phil.

Just the occasional Cock.

Regards,
Will

[Wacky Racer]

[Fishtigua]

I thought about importing some smokers from New Zealand into the UK but someone else already had the same idea and beat me to it.

http://www.bradleysmoker.co.nz/product/bradley-2-r...

[otolith]

[Landlord]

WCZ said:

Just the occasional Cock.

Regards,
Will

[Landlord]

otolith said:

Looks fancy!

[dazco]

Landlord said:

Looks fancy!

If you are thinking of buying one I noticed that there is one on ebay that appears to be an exact copy of others at twice the price.

I was looking for barbecues.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-BBQ-BARBECUE-GRILL-B...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Landmann-11094-Charcoal-Te...

[otolith]

Landlord said:

Looks fancy!

Cobbled together from two old pedal bins and some aluminium ducting. You make the smoke in one and cool it in the ducting so you can cold smoke your fish. Inside the one with the pipe coming out of the top, I have a small bucket barbecue full of sawdust with a little gas burner underneath it.

[Tanguero]

I just bought an empty whisky cask to break down to fuel my smoker for salmon. It wasn't quite as empty as I was expecting and I got a couple of bottles of a rather decent Islay malt out of it as a bonus!

Edited by Tanguero on Wednesday 20th March 14:20