Thread: Smoking

Bit of a novice at smoking fish, have used the small hot smoker with brown sugar & salt. Have also been blown away with cold smoked Marlin which is an art I would love to know more about.
Opportunity knocks as I have an old fridge that has sucked a kumera, thoughts are park it out back, some ducting and a smoky fire detached from the fridge, fish placed on racks.
Preparation of fish, soaked in a brine etc and ideas most appreciated. Living in Christchurch where smoked fish is impossible to find.

Great idea..YouTube would be a place to gather ideas …..only one I’ve seen was at French pass way back ..fridge on top with a tunnel dug underground to a bank ..was pretty cool.. drift wood fire down to coals , then hang fish Kahawai, then a arm full of green Manuka branch’s to smoke ..carefree times long gone when I was just a pup! …still rember that very first mouthful…fresh bread a knob of butter and smoked Kahawai…ohhh how so very very delicious!

You may need to ventilate the fridge to get it to draw and the smoke to pass through. For cold smoking 60c is the max temp before you start to cook the protein.

Dicko is correct, the fridge will require some ventilation as you need the smoke to draw through it. A shutter is a good idea so you can regulate the amount of flow. If making a separate fire is an issue for you then try a smoke generator like the Smokai, they work well and are pretty hassle-free.

Keep in mind there are two methods of smoking - cold and hot. A fridge might not be suitable for hot smoking so you're limiting yourself a little bit. While you can do a lot with cold smoking there are times when you might wish to hot smoke as well.

Once you get your fish recipes sorted you'll find you'll also enjoy smoking other meats. For example, I rapidly moved on to curing my own bacon and smoking it - with absolutely stunning results. The options are limitless. You'll realy enjoy it.

Thanks Guys given me a few clues to get started. Remember using a Fridge at a aptly name bay, (Smoke house Bay) on Gt Barrier island, that was 50 years ago, forgotten the basics of it, yes needs to be vented and the 60 and below heat is awesome info. Will dig though U tube also.

When I was a kid my dad used to cold smoke most of the fish we caught when camping.

Been a long time since I thought about it, but he used to use a 44 gallon drum (with open top) with an upturned ‘U’ shaped hole in one side at the bottom. Into this he placed the end of a sheet of corrugated iron in the U shape which ran down the slope of the beach. It had sand packed around it to prevent the smoke from escaping and acted as a sort of chimney.

He would light a smouldering sawdust fire at the open end of the corrugated iron chimney and the smoke would drift up the slope, being fairly cool by the time it reached the drum. The drum contained horizontal rods made of high tensile fencing wire, and from this were hung a whole fillet (skin and scales still attached for strength) that had been soaked in brine. The drum was covered in a wet sack to limit smoke loss. Used to light it in the evening and by morning it was done.

For cold smoking I use a UFO smoke generator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv7zYhpGCec Smokai do one also, both Kiwi made & very easy to use. So much easier than shagging around with a firebox and you cannot accidentally hot smoke the fish and you have control over smoke output. You can convert anything (44 gallon drum, tea chest, barby etc) into a decent smoker with one of these. For fish I buy pohutakawa sawdust nice and mild Manuka is much stronger in flavour. For brining you can either just use uniodized salt or salt/brown sugar and pack it between fillets and then wash off and dry technique or make a brine. Brine fish then wash in running fresh water, cut a bit off microwave it and test for saltyness every hour or so when happy dry off to form pellicle and smoke. There's heaps of youtube instructionals etc. I have a cheap vacuum packer to freeze the final product, you need to be careful not to knock the finished items around in the freezer as the cheap vacpac plastic is fragile, they pop and you end up with freezer burn. It's a fair bit of dicking around maybe practice with some kahawai or speckled mud fish before you launch into a marlin but once you get hang of it it's not too bad.

We are salting and sugaring [brown sugar] over night then smoking in morning. No water near trout at any stage. Use a small amount of manuka or pohutakawa saw dust . Remember you can add another smoke but can't take out an over done smoke. My son adds some chili or other powder when salting the night before.

Ive got an old fridge with one of those ufo smoke makers hooked up to it. Smoking a lamb roast before cooking it turns out pretty nice

Wow the UFO set up would suit me fine, use the old fridge or the barbeque, only 2 of us so Barbys probably big enough.

they seem pretty good when I first got it i just connected it to my cheapie hot smoker. Ive been using it for a few years now and now I need to figure out what to give it a soak in to remove the resin out of it