Today’s delicious project is smoking up all the fish I have caught this year.  It has not been my most successful fishing year since I had to save them up until I had enough to actually fill up most of the smoker.  I need to go kokanee fishing in a lake that has more fish in them.  Also for this smoke batch I have a Northern Whitefish to smoke. This is a fish that I have never smoked but is supposed to be great smoked.  I am doing a basic sugar brine on these like what we used when I was a kid in Alaska on salmon

brine mix:

• 1/2 gallon of water
• 1 cup salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Brine the trout/kokanee/whitefish for 75 minutes then let dry on a rack to form a pellicle (hard glaze coating) for an hour or so.  Then on to smoking.  They are then smoked at 190 degrees from 90 minutes or until the meat will flake easily and the interior of the fish reaches 140 degrees.  I am using an electric smoker for them so I can control the smoke and temperature more easily.

 

The whitefish is nice and flaky.  Great flavor to it.  I will need to go catch some more.  They are easy to catch and there are lots and lots of them all over central Oregon.

Delicious comes to mind when I tasted them out of the smoker.  Now I will need to catch more fish to smoke sense these will disappear quickly.  Maybe i will try to smoke some bluegill or crappie if I can catch some.