Alder Smoked Steelhead Trout

[smoker pete]

Big time fish lover ... I love to catch em, release em and eat em too!!  But over the years I have never caught, smoked, cooked, or eaten a Steelhead Trout.  Steelhead are ocean-running rainbow Trout and for the most part, it's not legal to fish commercially for Steelhead.  When I saw some nice Fresh Farmed Steelhead Fillets at Costco I decided to remedy the situation.  Each fillet weighed about 2½ lbs.  Notice the old fisherman's trick to make a fish look bigger.  Both fillets are the same size yet the front one looks so much bigger  ;D



The Brine of course was kummok's recipe except I added 1 Tbsp of onion powder to it and omitted the cayenne pepper.  12 hour brine and 12 hour glazing in the refrigerator.



Inserted the Steelhead Trout into the 110ºF pre-heated OBS and loaded 9 Alder Bisquettes for a 3 hour smoke.  Programmed the Auber PID for 1 hour at 110ºF, followed by 1 hour at 120ºF,  4 hours at 140ºF, and 3 hours at 175ºF which will give me plenty of time to complete the Steelhead smoking process.



Rotated the racks every hour - top to bottom, front to back.  Unfortunately, 4 hours into the smoke when the temp should be at 140ºF I experienced a malfunction with the OBS heating elements which predicated that I use an alternate method to complete smoking the Steelhead Trout.  I closely monitor the smoking process with my Maverick ET-732 and soon noticed that the OBS temp was at 121º vs the programmed 140º and would not climb any higher.  The temp was being maintained by the smoking element and an ambient temp of 90+º   >:( >:( :'(

Fortunately I was able to fall back on my MAK 2 Star Pellet Grill to complete the smoking of the Steelhead Trout.  Set the MAK controller to 200º figuring that by now the Steelhead was at the point where it wouldn't develop white "boogers".



Pulled the Alder Smoked Steelhead Trout when the IT reached 140ºF and allowed the fish to rest under a loosely fitted foil tent for 45 minutes.  Took about 2 hours in the MAK to finish the smoke.



The money $shot ... I'll let the photo speak for itself ... Bon Appétit ... No, it didn't taste like chicken :D ;)  It tasted like smoked salmon!!



Smoked fish gets better with time.  Vacuumed sealed the rest and into the freezer for at least a couple of weeks.  I know it's hard to wait for it but it's worth it ...



Gonna try my luck with the 900 watt element mod.  Got the part numbers from muebe and have ordered me one of those Finned Strip elements.  There's too many items I still prefer to use my OBS with!!

[devo]

Funny you posted this today. i went to our superstore today to see if salmon was on sale but it was not so I picked up four good sized Steelhead. They are in the fridge for the over night soak in kummok's recipe. Guess you know what I will be doing tomorrow. We catch stealhead here in the rivers in the spring time but I never made it out this year so store bought had to do.

[Rainmaker]

Great looking smoked Steelhead.  I love how thick the fillets were.

[pikeman_95]

Funny you posted this today. i went to our superstore today to see if salmon was on sale but it was not so I picked up four good sized Steelhead. They are in the fridge for the over night soak in kummok's recipe. Guess you know what I will be doing tomorrow. We catch stealhead here in the rivers in the spring time but I never made it out this year so store bought had to do.

I was thinking the same thing. I just got done sealing mine. They taste fantastic. I bet they would taste unreal flaked over a large Cesar salad. There was a fish place in Fremont Ca that served something like that an it was great.