Smoking fish at home is honestly one of the most pleasureable types of cooking for me I love the whole process. Now this is a long process that will almost consume the day. But the flavours gained from smoking fish or food in general is more than worth it and its a form of preserving the shelf life of your fish. Once you have the smoked fish you can then use the smoked fish in a huge variety of snacks or meals.
Prep Time: 12hrs
Cook Time: 4-10 hrs depending on temperature and how big the fish is
Total Time: 18hrs
Taste 9.8/10
Smoked Australian Salmon Ingredients
Whole Raw Australian Salmon You can use any fatty/oily fish as a substitute
Brine Mix for 500g-1kg of fish
1.5L Warm Water (helps everything dissolve)
400g Brown Sugar
800g Kosher Salt
Tea spoon of Onion Powder
Tea spoon of Garlic Powder
Items for Smoking
3 in 1 Smoker BBQ
BBQ Coals
Wood Chips In this video Cherry and Alder chips were used
Fire making device such as a Match Stick or a M2A1-7 Flamethrower
Some Kitchen Foil aka Aluminium Foil
You are very lucky today because I actually made an entire video on how to smoke fish. It includes the whole process which will help you greater than reading my shoddy notes.
Im going to proclaim that Salmon isnt a 10/10 fish but, when you smoke salmon it will be pretty darn close to 10/10.
Brine for starters
Start by making your brine, to do this just add a ratio of 2:1 Salt:Brown Sugar roughly, so 800g of salt 400g of sugar add garlic granules or onion powder. Mix in some warm water 1.5L in this case for bigger fish use this ration and just double it or triple it to suit. Mix that all in and give it a good stir I use warm water to help it dissolve a bit better. I wouldn't use hot water or boiled water as this will take ages to cool to then add the fish.
Next up add your fish ensuring that the brine covers the fish. You may need to rotate the fish depending what kind of tub or container you have. Leave the fish in the brine for 8 - 12hrs in a cool place whilst covered.
Once the 8 - 12 hrs has occurred your fish is then ready to come out of the brine, give it a light rinse off to prevent it from being overly salty.
Ready for Smoking
Okay so get the coals nice and white ready for cooking.
Soak your wood chips in water for 30mins - 1 hr before smoking.
Dab them dry and put them into some foil and poke holes in the foil so you have little foil packets with wood chips inside.
Have your Smoker sit between 80-100 Degrees and try and regulate this temperature by adding or reducing the amount of coals you have. Add more coals and wood chips when needed. Smoke the fish until the internal temperature hits 70degrees and you can use a thermometer to do this. This will ensure any potential nasties are dead.
This might take a few hours I've found the lower temperature and slower the smoke the better the flavour and texture.
This was my first time smoking a frozen fish and this was only done due to the amount of Total Fire Bans that had been issued due to at the time due to bushfires around central coast, Sydney and Batemans Bay. This was also a first time for me smoking a brine and a dry rub together. I probably wouldn’t do it again as the flavour transferred from one to the other although still delicious it seems pointless. That being said it was still a great smoke and I really enjoyed it.
I hope you guys and girls have enjoyed another wet mammal recipe. Let me know what's your favourite fish to smoke in the comment section.
Check out the video!