How to Smoke Fish with an Electric Smoker

Smoked fish is tasty to say the least. Its a very rewarding endeavor to catch your own fish, clean it, fillet it and then take it home and smoke it. Smoking the meat helps preserve the meat and it makes a great appetizer with cheese and crackers during football parties.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Electric Smoker
• Fish
• Brine

1. First thing you need to do is brine the fish. You can make your own brine but I like to use Hi Mountain Smoke Your Own Gourmet Fish Brine Mix. You can purchase this at any quality outdoor store such as Cabella's. You should only brine the fish for about 8 hours. I usually start the brine the night before the smoking day and get it ready with a cup of coffee in the morning.

2. Once the fish is brined you need to remove it from the brine and give it a rinse. Once it is rinsed take a paper towel and dry off the fish. Put the fish on your wire racks and place the racks of fish back into the refrigerator for one hour. While the fish is in the fridge fire up your smoker and get it heated up.

3. Now place the fish in the smoker and place the smoking chips on the pan and place them into the smoker. The chips should start smoking within about 5 or 10 minutes. Once you notice the smoke has stopped, empty the pan and add more chips. The fish should smoke for a total of about and hour and a half. After that hour and a half remove the chips entirely and let the fish set in the smoker for another 4 and a half hours.

4. After a total of 6 hours in the smoker check the fish to see if it is cooked enough. If the weather out side is hot then it may only need 6 hours. If its a bit colder you may want to leave it in the smoker to cook for about 8 hours total. Its also up to your taste in the fish. I like my fish a little moister so I tend to cook it a bit less.

Tips & Warnings

• Use fresh fish. Smoking will not hide old fish. The quality will be reflected.
• Make sure you use your smoker out doors or in an area with great ventilation. I recommend outdoors as the smoke smell will linger in any garage you may try this in.

[justinhi]

on 9/27/2009 Great article.5*/rec

[botticelli728]

on 9/14/2009 Fascinating technique! 5*

[sullysee]

on 9/14/2009 Good smoking fish instructions, I want an electric smoker. 5*

[investmentarts]

on 9/14/2009 I actually always wanted to try making this with salmon. Thanks :)

[mommyhen42]

on 9/13/2009 when I was a young kid my dad used to do this. I was too young to learn how. Thank you for showing me and bringing back some wonderful memories of fishing with my dad!