Smoking fish

I smoke trout, salmon, kawahai, when I can get them caught. I even smoke eels, fantastic.
I use the same method as that KIWI. in Aussie.
Brown sugar is to add colour but is not essential, salt is.
I smoke fish in a purpose built fish smoker, a kettle BBQ, a hooded BBQ, but my favourite smoker is an old vertical clothes drying cabinet, get a fire of soggy Kamahi chunks smouldering away nicely, hang the eels by the head or place the butterflied fish on the racks. The aroma tells you when it is ready. For other type smokers Manuka sawdust is good, have used hickory etc, I have experimented with other woods,English oak, other native timbers, the main thing I have found is not to use a wood that the smoke is to pungent.
Depending on the heat a trout around 1.5 -2 kg will take around 20min to smoke, as it is hot smoked it is cooked as well, the smoke adds to the flavour..
I am sure some of the Aussie timbers would be great to, they would need to be will soaked so that they only smoulder.
Now you have got my mouth watering.
Enjoy

When I loive din NZ I had abeach house up at Langs Beach which many years ago used to be on septic tanks.

Well we eventually got hooked up top the mains sewer and seled the old septic tank access off with concret but retained the outhouse which I turned into one of the best smokehouses ever

The concrete base was the fireplace where the manuka logs/sawdust/branches sat and the outhouse had enough height that I could hang heaps of snapper at the same time - and lets not forget the smoked roe - mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Caught a marlin once and ended up smoking it in the outhouse too

Ahhhhh - now MY mouth is watering

Not really to do with smoking it yourself; I buy vac packs of smoked chicken from the Woolies or Coles deli. These are smoked breast (no bone) and, being cooked, have a very good shelf life in the fridge, unlike fresh chicken, which is only a few days. I used it sliced up in a stir-fry when camping, works well.
cheers, Gerry

Gday Gerry,
Yeah, its good stuff.......and like you said.....it has a much better shelf life than normal chicken.

Hi Lionel
Fish is usually hotsmoked.
The heat cooks the fish and the smoke adds to the flavour. that is why you have the fish close to the heat source.
Cold smoking is when the fire is away from the food and the smoke is directed from the fire to the meat. As in smoking Ham Bacon etc. Used mainly to preserve.
Back in my deer hunting days to keep venison, even possum we used to liberally rub salt into the meat, or soak in sea water, then hang the meat in the top of the hut chimney for a while, we only used Manuka for firing.
The meat would then keep, just hang it in the shade and the flies weren't a problem, as it was cold smoked it needed cooking before eating.

Google Cob Cooker, they might be multi purpose. Happy Days. Pauper.

The Cobb does smoked fish very well indeed

I have treid putting damp wood chips on the grey coated hot coals and I have also tried putting damp chips in the moat

The moat was better - chips smoked longer and harder

Hi again Kiwi.
I didn't know could eat those fish that live in those muddy waters,.
I run a Cobb there, have slow cooked and smoked a small leg of lamb, don't remember the name of the timber, but is was chips off the roots that as coals are ideal for a camp oven, now was that mulga?, biggest problem was controlling the cooking heat.
Soaking to create smoke not heat, I think is most important for success,
It was still very edible any way.