smoking fish with no brine???

[chuckee]

My mom was asking me if i have ever heard of "dry smoking" she has a client that said it is really good, anyone ever heard of this?and if so could you give me a recipe, thanks

[hack2ee]

i've heard of people using "no liquid" brines. salt and brown sugar coverd fish. never tried it though.i think martha stewart did it once. i'll have to ask my wife....

[Lipripper]

I have always used a dry brine. Brown sugar and salt along with various other spices. This has always produced great results. I think it cuts down an smoking time.

[letsfish]

i use a "dry brine". I was introduced to it by a friend, he used a commercial brine available is some grocery stores-Morton is the brand name and is a general brine.The more I used it I decided I could save some money and just make it myself. Again, the key ingredients are salt and brown sugar. Add spices to your tastes and willingness to experiment.
Cut the fish into 1x4 inch slabs place a layer skin down in a large bowl, sprinkle mixture over the top, put more slabs down "meat to meat".Create layers like this til the bowl is full. Put in fridge,check to remove excess drainage, 24 hrs later remove.Clean off excess and add spices and put in dryer.
I don't smoke fish often but the simplicity of this recipe makes it less a chore.I have been thinking of adding a few steps and/or ingredients ie.smoke flavoring, apple juice or other juice(for sweetness or other flavor attribute ).

[FM2]

Hi chuckee, This will sound strange but I smoke alot of fish to give away and have never tasted any of it... [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

I use two different brining methods, one is the mentioned dry brining where I use one cup of kosher salt to 2 cups of brown sugar. Once you have your fish filet's ready, put into a glass baking dish and cover with the mixture and let soak in the fridge covered for 24 hours. The fish will leach out alot of it's own juices. After about 18 hours I turn the fish over to soak meat side down for the last 6 hours. Ater the 24 hour brining period I let the fish sit out for another 24 hours before smoking. I make either a peppered or Honey coated finish. If I use the honey finish, I mix honey and brown sugar and melt it in the microwave and coat the fish near the end of the drying period (around the last 3 hours, otherwise it turns very dark from the sugar in the mixture). I always use cherry wood for the smoking sweetness on this recipe. If I'm using the cracked peppered finish, I grind fresh pepper over the fish before I put it into the smoker and use alder wood for the flavor.

I've heard my smoked fish is really good [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] but since I can't eat it I will take everyone's input.

I'll tell you another time about my wet brining method, heard it's really good too ! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[sinker]

do a search here or on bob's board.
Be carefull though, you might end up with so many different recipes it's confusing which ones to use.

[Pilar]

I've always heard the rocksalt smoking method called 'hard cure' or 'dry cure'. Just pack filets in rock salt for 30 min, rinse it off and smoke it.

[Trout,myster]

Chuckee (and anyone else interested):
Get yourself a copy of "Smoking Salmon and Trout" by Jack Whelan. It's available from Frank Amato publications.
There are several recipes described and the one I've had really good luck with is called a "Scotch sugar-rum cure". It starts out with covering your filets with plain salt (non iodized) for about 12 hours. Then the salt is rinsed off and you just let it finish curing for about another 6 hours. Rub down with vegetable oil, let sit for 6 hours. Wipe that off with rum soaked rag. Cover with brown sugar and let sit 6 hours. Wipe off sugar and coat with vegetable oil again. Let sit for 6 hours. Wipe off the oil again with rum. Load the smoker and smoke to suit.
This is the basics of the Scotch dry brining, and I keep it written down the way I wrote it for convenience. The book has a wealth of info on everything from brines, to pickling, to building your own smoker. The fish produced from this is very good, and I'm not a fish fan except for walleye and occasional sturgeon. Just like to catch'em.


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