Smokin' White fish

The rivers I frequent seem to have an abundance of white fish. White fish is reported as an oily fish that is excellent for smoking. I mentioned this to my wife, who by the way loves to eat fish. Well, guess what I got for Christmas?




On the last trip I made to the Weber River I kept four of the many white fish that I caught. They were good size, 17 to 19 inchers. I buried them in the snow as I continued to fish and then I gathered them up and placed them on a stringer during my hike back to the truck. The limit for white fish in Utah is 10.

At home, I cleaned the fish and placed them in a brine marinade to soak refrigerated overnight. Here is the recipe that I used which is from the Masterbuilt smoker manual:



Water 2 cups

Soy Sauce ¼ cup

Teriyaki Sauce ¼ cup

Salt ½ cup

Lemon Pepper 1 tsp

Garlic Salt 1 tsp

The next day, I sprayed the racks of the smoker with oil and soaked a ½ cup of alder chips in water for a half hour. I set the smoker temperature to 225 degrees and the timer to 3 hours 30 minutes. Then I took the fish from the marinade and placed them on the smoker racks. I drained the alder chips and placed them into the smoker and started another ½ cup soaking. In a half an hour I drained the other chips that were soaking and placed them in the smoker. This kept the smoke going a good solid hour.

At the end of the 3 ½ hours, I pulled the fish out. The skin had turned somewhat hard and was easy to pull off. Smoking the fish with the skin on has a couple of advantages. It is easier to pull the skin off after smoking, and most importantly, it retains the juices and keeps the meat moist.

Next I pulled the meat off the bones with a fork. An advantage of smoking the fish whole is that the meat comes easily off the bones, whereas if filleted, you loose a lot of the meat.

Of course, the fish were very delicious. I will keep experimenting and let you know what works. This method I just tried worked well for fish that you will eat right away. Some variations I would like to try are: 1. smoking the meat so it dries and can be kept for long periods of time, and 2. using the smoker to cook the fish for pulling off the skin and de-boning and then frying the fish in a batter.