Hot Smoked Trout

You need:

All fish should be cleaned and gutted, gills and eyes removed before curing.

• Trout

Curing brine per 1 liter/quart:

To ensure adequate salt uptake prepare at least 1.5 parts of brine to 1 part of fish by weight

• Water – 1 liter/quart
• Salt – 100 g / 6 tbsp

Optionally:

If using herbs boil them in small volume of water for 5 minutes and add the essence to the brine.

 Sugar – 100 g / 8 tbsp

• All Spice – 6 grains
• Bay leaves – 3 leaves

Curing:

Newly harvested trout should be kept on ice for at least 1 day after gutting; otherwise they may take up insufficient salt during brining. Frozen trout can be brined immediately after thawing.

The fish should be washed and graded by weight before brining, so that the uptake of salt is uniform throughout a batch in a given time. Fish bigger than 1000 g (2.0 lb) should be filleted

Suitable brining times are as follows:

• Fillet up to 1.0 inch thick or whole fish up to 250 g (0.5 lb) – 2 hours
• Whole fish 250 g – 500 g (0.5 – 1.0 lb) – 4 hours
• Whole fish bigger than 500 g (1 lb) – 9 hours

The fish should be stirred periodically during brining. Brine temperature should be kept above 10°C; below this temperature the rate of salt uptake is reduced. You can keep the fish in room temperature unless long brining time is required.

Drying:

After required time, remove Trout from brine, hang on the rod or place on the rack and let dry until the fish starts to develop sticky glaze (pellicle). Use toothpicks to keep the bellies of fish open.

Smoking:

• Preheat your smoker to 40°C (115°F), place the fish in the smoker and dry for 30 minutes
• Smoke with medium smoke for5 hrs in 45-50°C. (115-130°F) using alder woodchips. You can mix some juniper grains in the wood chips for extra flavor.
• Increase temperature to 90°C (195°F) and smoke for another 30 minutes or until the internal meat temperature reaches 60°C (140°F).
• The trout is now ready for consumption.