Smoking Whitefish

Do you experienced smokers smoke them whole or filleted? Brine x 24hrs first? I have only done salmon but may try to smoke some in the future. Any advice appreciated.

Whitefish can be smoked in the round or filleted. Fillets take less time in the finishing stage. The following is my recipe and works for all fish. I have done salmon, trout, catfish, sturgeon, whitefish, whitebass, crappie, walleye, musky, carp and others with it. Brine time depends on fish thickness and desired level of saltiness. Whitebass and crappie only 5 hours. Whole larger fish 8-12 hours. Fillets less than fish in the round. When cleaning fish for smoking remove scales and scrub out bloodline under rib cage. Mix 1/2 cup salt to 1 qt water and soak fish 30 - 45 minutes to leech out blood and remove any slime from the skin, rinse well. Brine mix - 2 1/2 gallons water, 2 lbs salt, 1 lb sugar, 1 oz cure, 1 oz crushed black peppers, 1 oz crushed bay leaves and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Soak fish for desired time. Remove fish and rinse well. Before smoking place fish on racks in a well vented area and allow to air dry for 1 - 3 hours, use a fan to move air if need be. Place in smoker at 90 - 100 degrees with vents wide open, no smoke for 3 hours. This removes surface moisture and glazes over the fish. Maintain 90 - 100 degrees for 4 - 8 hours with smoke and reduce the venting to less than half. Increase temperature to 150 and hold for 2 - 3 hours till fish measure 135 degrees on an internal thermometer. If significant amounts of grease drips from fish temp is too high. Cool fish and enjoy. I vacuum seal fish 3 - 5 days after and freeze. When thawed they are nearly as good as day one. My smoker is home built with two 55 gal drums stacked horizontal connected with a 6" sleeve pipe. Racks in the top and a gas two burner hot plate in the bottom. Unit sits in a plywood insulated box and holds temps even at zero degrees outside. Smoke is generated from a kettle with wood flakes placed on the edge of the burner. I have a small fan on a speed control that moves air gently inside the smoke chamber and makes for even temps. Works well on vennie sausage and such as well as brined and smoked fowl. Most important to remember is proper care of the fish after catching just like you would do for deep fried fish. Don't set fish in a bucket in the sun on a warm day and expect good results. The rib area bloodline removal is a must also as well as scaling. The smoking time and temps can't be rushed as the smoking process is designed to slowly remove moisture from the fish and provide the curing process. Over and done in 4 hours is the same as grilling or baking the fish with some smoke flavor added. For the brine the 2 1/2 gallon mix will do 50 - 60 whitebass, 20 whitefish, 8 salmon or trout. When crushing the bay leaves I wrap them in cheese cloth and place in the brine, easier to rinse fish or you have bits of bay leaves left on the fish. Use canning/pickling salt not table salt. Cure can be found at most any sporting goods store that carries venison processing supplies. I spray the racks in the smoker with some non-stick cooking spray first, Pam not the butter flavored. I buy bags of wood flakes at Fleet Farm/Gander Mountain using Apple, Hickory or Cherry. In the brine mix I have added some crushed dried red peppers for some enhanced flavor.

Im curious... What temps do you use and also how did you do the whitebass(fillets/chunks/whole)? I catch plenty of them and really like smoked fish and I got my father a nice big smoker a few years back sooo..... got the wheels turnin'.

I've posted this one a few times on these forums. When smoking whitefish, I cut the heads and tails off and remove the entrails. Depending on the size, I cut them into "single serving-sized" chunks. Have fun!

Smoked Fish Recipe – I got this one from a 1919 cookbook…..

For each of gallon of water used:

4 Cups Pickling Salt 2 Cups Brown Sugar 4 Bay Leaves 1-2 Tbs Black Pepper

Brine fish for 4-8 hours depending on size and thickness of fish chunks. The longer you brine, the saltier the flesh. I think the curing part of the process is pretty much done after 4-6 hours due to the very heavy salinity of this brine.

Rinse, pat dry with towel and let stand for at least one hour prior to putting on the smoker. This is called “forming the pellicle”. I have let them stand overnight with no negative results.

Smoke over favorite wood (my favorite is maple but apple and hickory are good too) for 3-6 hours depending on size of fish fillets, chunks, etc.

Notes:

1.This is a very simple recipe but I get rave reviews with it. I prefer to smoke the fish until it’s pretty dry. 2.I’ve played around with adding certain spices/sauces but I’ve come to the point that I only add a bunch of left over soy sauce packets from the Chinese restaurant. I don’t know if this does much with all of the other salt added but it seems to add a little color. 3.I accidentally doubled the amount of water (or cut the recipe in half) for a batch that I did for a neighbor a few weeks ago. I smoked whitefish chunks and pieces of salmon fillets. They turned out great and were less salty. I personally still prefer the original recipe. 4.I've used this recipe with salmon, trout, whitefish and whitebass. I've also had whole smoked crappies that were done with this recipe and they were great. Kind of a waste of crappies in my opinion but they were good all the same.