Smoked catfish

[tomme boy]

OK, I am pretty good at smoking pork, beef, chicken, turkeys. I have not done any fish yet. So, tonight I went out and caught a bunch of catfish. I want to try to smoke them. I have already cleaned them and they are in a cooler sitting in a ice and salt brine.

Anyone having any tips here? I have cherry wood for the smoke. My smoker is a propane model. Temps and how long???

[home in oz]

You are giving them a soaking in salt brine-that is good.

The last time I smoked catfish was not in a propane-fired smoker....so you may have to play it by ear for time, etc.

[tomme boy]

I normally run the smoker at 225-250 deg. Higher? Lower?

[Dale in Louisiana]

We used to filet panfish, salt and pepper them and string them on a wire, then hang 'em in the smokehouse until they got to the 'leather' stage.

They keep well, not that we had much luck with that. They make a tasty snack.

BTW, it was a REAL smokehouse, wood frame construction, with a tub of sand in the bottom where one built and tended a smoky fire. We used it mainly for sausage and tasso.

dale in Louisiana

[tomme boy]

Almost done. Had to add some more cherry wood chips.

I ended up with a brine with 1/2 cup of Kosher salt, 3/4 cup brown sugar, Creole seasoning I picked up in Louisiana a couple of years ago. It sat for 12 hours in the brine. Another hour or so and it will be ready. Just trying to dry it out a little more right now.

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[rush1886]

I've smoked a passel of fish over the years. I soak in a good sugar/salt* brine for at least 12 hrs, up to 18. My smoker, a "Big Chief", registers 155` at full throttle. The fish I smoke are generally 3-4 #'s rainbows and browns. Depending on the daily weather conditions, temperature, humidity, but especially wind, I will smoke from 4 to 6 hrs.

To be perfectly honest, if you tested me with several different woods for smoke, I prolly couldn't identify them outright. Having said that, I usually use approx 90% pecan and 10% maple "shavings" as my smoke.

*My brine usually runs about 2 to 1 sugar to salt. It works for ham and bacon, right? I just don't care for any smoked meats that taste more of salt than anything else.

[Changeling]

I absolutely love fish especially blue gills cleaned/cooked my way.
But in answer to the OP question, I have never smoked fish other than on a webber kettle grill and that was for dinner.

However my father smoked fish, pork sausage, Hams, bacon, you name it. He built a smoke house out of uncoated (raw) pine where he smoked everything. His stupid son didn't think it was important enough to pay attention and listen to him though. Now he's suffering the consequences!!

I did cut/split all the wood he used for smoking and put in a shed to dry a year or so before he would use it. Pork was always hickory and on ocasion a blend.
Fish was always smoked with apple wood, and he smoked a lot of catfish ( I caught), they were really great, but I don't know what spices he used, sorry.

[Dale in Louisiana]

I absolutely love fish especially blue gills cleaned/cooked my way.
But in answer to the OP question, I have never smoked fish other than on a webber kettle grill and that was for dinner.

However my father smoked fish, pork sausage, Hams, bacon, you name it. He built a smoke house out of uncoated (raw) pine where he smoked everything. His stupid son didn't think it was important enough to pay attention and listen to him though. Now he's suffering the consequences!!

I did cut/split all the wood he used for smoking and put in a shed to dry a year or so before he would use it. Pork was always hickory and on ocasion a blend.
Fish was always smoked with apple wood, and he smoked a lot of catfish ( I caught), they were really great, but I don't know what spices he used, sorry.

Green wood works great for cold smoking. It was often my job to tend the fire, which meant that I would check to make sure that it was just barely smoldering, smoky. Remember, this style of smoking is not a cooking method, it's a food preservation method. You want to lower the moisture content on the outside and raise the salt content of the inside so that the food would keep without refrigeration because what the old folks had in mind.

Smoking to this style wasn't a four-hour affair. It went on for days. I've seen the old smoked meats from the days of my youth and that meat was dry. it would keep well, hung in a dry place. Cooking with it often meant soaking and long cooking times, but you also need to remember that the strong flavors were meant for more of a seasoning and flavoring for beans and greens and such.

today we usually smoke for flavor, and a few hours will provide a smoky flavor and color, but the meat then needs to be cooked or refrigerated.

dale in Louisiana

[tomme boy]

Well it turned out really good. But man was it oily! I have never seen so much oil before this. I went for 6 hours at 200 deg. After I let it sit for 2 hours wrapped in aluminum foil in the oven to cool.

Next time I am going to put a rub on them before they go in. I like the fish I have bought from the local places and they have a slight salt on the surface. I just don't like how dry they are from them though. I might try hickory next as the cherry is pretty mild for this.

[richhodg66]

I bowfish quite a bit and had been told carp is good smoked which is true. I decided to try it and it turned out good for a guy who didn't know anything about smoking. I just got a cheap Wal Mart smoker, made a charcoal fire and threw soaked wood chunks (maple) on it and let it smoke about four hours. I soaked the filets in brine I made with salt and water and brown sugar, wasn't real precise about proportions, just poued in as much as I could get to disolve well. My kids were would scarf it up when they were younger and I made some for our Cub Scout pack one campout and they all liked it too.

I like smoked fish. Carp is kind of oily no matter how you cook it, I never thought of trying cat fish or pan fish.

[OverMax]

A good brine is the proper amount of Pickling/Canning Salt added to its water. I prefer Morton's salt for my brine's. One way to tell is the old school use of a unbroken egg. When the egg barely floats off the bottom of your brine container. You have reached the pinnacle of success concerning its salty’ness. {Testing for egg suspension: in a quiet still brine solution just by lightly touching the egg itself to see if it is indeed suspended or not. Is how you tell.} The higher a egg floats the saltier the brine will be. (to correct a brine and lower your egg's float or increase your egg's float. All that's needed is to add more fresh water to the brine so's to weaken it or add more salt to rich'en it. One or the other.) Then there is the matter of how sweet you want your brine to be. (Dark) brown sugar is best suited for that purpose. Or Splenda could be used for those having a problem with sugar itself. Another ingredient. The amount of liquid smoke to add. Then there is the amount of time required to brine your fish. That's based on the fish's weight. And the need to soak your brine fish in a clear water rinse before their smoking as to help reduce that overly salty taste sometimes incurred. One more little item to keep in mind. The proper heat temp of your smoker.
I've smoked 4 oz bullheads to 30-lb plus King salmon and just about everything else that swims or walks. To be honest it does require some skill to make a tasty treat. But in order to learn those skills. My advice: Keep that smoker warmed up. As that is the only way you'll learn. As I did.

O/M

[Rick N Bama]

However my father smoked fish, pork sausage, Hams, bacon, you name it. He built a smoke house out of uncoated (raw) pine where he smoked everything. His stupid son didn't think it was important enough to pay attention and listen to him though. Now he's suffering the consequences!!

A lot of Fathers raised stupid sons.....yours truly included! Like you, I didn't pay much attention when my father was curing & smoking meats.

Rick

[Changeling]

Hi Rick, hindsight is a real bitch, nice to see I'm not the only one, I hope!

[Changeling]

Dale WHAT. Anyone that smokes there own meat knows that the hams/pork/bacon smoked are also salt rubbed (sometimes salt/spice infused) beore the smoking process. My dad smoked his pork products according to what he had learn't from his father/grandfather/etc,.
When the smoking/curing was done they were hung in the basement, witch we usually consumed on his calendar till it was time to butcher and salt cure/smoke again.
Yes, these were country cured hams like the ones you pay up to $12.00 per lb for now. Some people call thim "Smithfield Hams" , but that is just a name that relates to the whole overall process of salting/curing/smoking!
To say that it must be soaked in water before eating is relative to the individual and there expertise in knowing how to smoke a ham/bacon/etc.

I spent many a morning going down to the basement, slicing of some of that "Wonderful Ham" and bringing it back up to my Mom to prepaare for breakfast for the family.
So please don't imply that this was a curing process that was undersiable.

[flounderman]

the oily fish smoke the best. Enough salt in the brine to float an egg. You use enough heat to cook the fish first and then just leave them at a lower temperature for a while to dry them down. Wisconsin regulated the commercial smokers years ago. Registering thermometer with a probe, I don't remember the temperature required, but something like 170 degrees for 30 minutes. I'm not sure about the time or the temperature, anymore. You don't skin a cat to smoke it, carp you scale and split. You don't need anything in the brine but salt and you smoke with hickory or maple. Use dry wood, green wood will blacken the fish with creosote. I commercial fished the upper Mississippi for years and sold thousands of pounds of carp to the smokers. A smoked carp out of cold water is a good fish. Not so good out of warm water. about the only fish I saw better than the channel cat smoked was a sturgeon. Had some big flathead cat smoked from the ohio river and they were good, but the channel cat has more oil. smoked whitefish are good, too. another oily fish. Dry fish don't smoke very good. The cold smoked fish are basicly a raw fish with some salt and smoke.

[MaryB]

Did a lot of hot smoked flatheads over the years. Good eating. Now the river is so polluted 1 a month is all they recommend.

[Changeling]

flounderman, I am pretty sure I could live with that guidance for a Long time, it's not really that much different than when I was being raised. However I did what I was told and skinned the channel cats.

Something that very few people know is that in the winter channel cats will sometimes "Ball up" in a deep hole! Find out where they are doing that and never tell another sole! You will have them when ever you want them.