Lake Trout

[jjmoney]

OK so I pulled off my first lake trout today. 2 fish only. Rubbed with oil, salt, sugar, and spices and refrigerated overnight, then dried a bit and hot smoked at 120-140-175 until done. 2 hours 40 minutes smoke, 2:20 at the beginning and then one more puck before the cook to add a little more in. All maple.

Notes:

1. I like the general idea of the Bradley no-brine method from the recipe booklet, but I added too much salt, thinking that the salt would draw liquid out like when you make bacon. I should have rinsed the rub before racking the fillets. The flavor was right where I wanted it to be, except for the salt. I made a dip/spread with some of it today, which was great, and will use the rest for chowder and/or cream spaghetti sauce, because it's too salty for regular eating by the handful.

2. Whole fillets did not cook as fast as the smaller parts of fillets. Always break fillets before smoking to even out and reduce cook times.

I'm committed to finding both a good "straight" trout preparation as well as at least one asian flavor profile including soy sauce, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, lemongrass, etc. Hearing about the Jerky King stores in the LA area (after I had just been there on vacation nonetheless) reinforces my drive to perfect asian flavor profiles for jerked and smoked meats. I will post pictures. It's coming up on high time for lake trout here and I like it best smoked, so stay tuned.

[eldub]

Can't wait to see any asian style recipes you get dialed in.

And it appears you learned the hard way that you have to rinse before smoking. hehe

[jjmoney]

Alright! Six beautiful lake trout went into the smoker today. One I made with a plain rub - paprika, garlic powder, a touch of onion powder, mustard, pepper, salt and sugar.

The other one was asian style. I will try and describe what I did here so others can recreate the flavor.

I took 6 lemongrass stalks and put the bottom inner parts in the blender. I also used about 1.5 cubic inches of ginger and 5 cloves of garlic. I put in a couple handfuls of thai basil, a couple kaffir lime leaves, and 8 tiny habaneros from my garden. For the liquids I used fish sauce, soy sauce, agave syrup, and lime juice, as well as a little coconut oil and a little canola oil (next time I will use coconut milk). I made it so it was pretty salty, but with a little sour and sweet. Much like I would do a teriyaki marinade for beef jerky.

I hot smoked it all with 3 hours at 120, rolled the smoke about 1.5 hours in. Then up to 140 for 3.5 hours to dry it a little, and finally 2 hours at 175.

The flavor of the asian fish is excellent - the asian herbs give it a lot of zip which cuts through the smoke and fish taste. I'm very happy with how this turned out. Next time the only thing I would do different was use a little less smoke - this had about 10 pucks worth; I only used that much since it was smoking wet at the start.

[pz]

Sounds really tasty!

[Saber 4]

Looks tasty!!!

[rveal23]

Looks good enough to eat!  ;D

Need help? :)