Appetizing delicious hot smoked fish is obtained if you make it yourself using a home smoker. To do this, you need to know the features of the technology: choose the right meat, pick up the sawdust for the smokehouse, observe the temperature and humidity conditions. If everything works out correctly, the dish will be eaten instantly.
How to smoke fish in a smoking smokehouse
For beginners, it will be interesting to know how to smoke hot smoked fish using a smokehouse. Hot smoked means the treatment of high temperature smoke. At the heart of the technology is a short salting time and a short smoking on a very hot smoke with a temperature of over 100 degrees. The time of smoking is not more than 3 hours, sometimes less, depending on the thickness of the carcass and its fat content. The finished product has an appetizing taste and color - both smoked and baked. It is not for long, but it is immediately eaten.
The main stages of smoking are:
- prepare the fish - clean, remove the gills, rinse, pickle or salivate with rubbing;
- after drying, it is dried;
- baking;
- actually smoking.
For a large carcass, an increase in the salting time is carried out - up to 12 hours, and to prevent spalling into pieces during processing, it is additionally tied with twine. It is not forbidden to add spices: pepper, dill, spicy herbs, fennel, cumin, especially with the recipe for mackerel. In addition to smokehouse, you can use the oven gas stove - the temperature there can reach 90 degrees, and the duration - a few hours.
How to smoke fish in a smokehouse
An important point, how to properly smoke fish in a smokehouse, is the choice of wood fuel. This can be firewood, shavings, sawdust, obtained from hardwood without tar. It is not suitable for a birch smoking recipe, but there is an option to cook a dish using beech, hornbeam, maple, alder, poplar, ash, apple. At home, it is possible to replace chips with gas and electricity, but the product will differ organoleptically.
Firewood for a smokehouse should be taken dry - humidity not more than 25%, if it is more than 50%, then the product will turn out to be unattractive externally, the taste will be bitter and resinous. At higher humidity, the product is not smoked - it will get boiled, become an unpleasant dark color. It is better to choose firewood than sawdust, because they give more smoke, and this is an important component of the success of getting hot smoked fish.
It is important to monitor the density of the smoke - if it is thick, the fish will become dull, dark brown in color, with an acid-bitter taste. With a small density of smoke, the product is not soothed until golden color, it will come out with a weak aroma. The amount of wood needed for the technology depends on the duration of cooking - the minimum required is a layer of 4-6 cm, which will be maintained throughout the production.
Which fish in the smokehouse will be delicious
When considering how to smoke fish in a smoking smokehouse to make it tasty, you need to consider breeds:
- will suit whitefish, grayling, carp, trout, pike, eel - but their strong taste should be softened by seasoning;
- local reservoirs will give a large perch, pike perch, borsch, sterlet, sturgeon, bream, asp, sheep, carp;
- delicious are unfrozen fatty breeds: capelin, mackerel, halibut, horse mackerel, catfish, flounder, silver carp, catfish, burbot.
How long does it take to smoke fish
Lovers of home-made delicious dishes will be interested in how much to smoke fish in a smoking smokehouse. Time will depend on the fatness conditions of the carcass, selected firewood and tools. Stationary large smokehouse in nature assumes cooking time up to 12 hours, and small portable braziers can smoke the product from 20 minutes to several hours. The fatter the meat, the longer it will take to cook.
This time does not take into account the duration of the salting, which must necessarily be carried out to enhance the taste of the dish. Small fish salted in brine 1 day, large - up to 3 days, if you take frozen material, it must be thawed in salt water - this process lasts up to 4 days. To pickle or simply marinate the carcass - the cooking person decides. After salting, the meat is kneaded for 60 minutes, washed as much if the carcass is large( mackerel) and a few minutes for shallow.
The most hot smoking lasts half an hour-hour for small, from 1,5 to 3 hours - large. To understand that the meat is ready, you can by golden-tea color scales and dry surfaces. The maximum shelf life of the finished recipe is 3 days without the cold, but if you cook it in small quantities, the carcasses will be eaten by the household and guests in a matter of minutes. It is better to eat the prepared dish at once, while it is fragrant and soft.
Smoking of fish in a smokehouse
During the process of smokying fish in a smoking smokehouse, the following steps are highlighted:
- Drying - after the fire has been set and the meat is laid on a baking tray or grill, open the lid of the smoker to gradually increase the temperature to 80 degrees. If you choose a temperature lower, you get a digested product. For the drying process, the material is left for half an hour, until the surface is dried. At this stage, do not put a lot of firewood to prevent fat loss.
- Baking - at this stage the fish is cooked in its own juice. It involves raising the temperature to 110 degrees, the time passes quickly - from 30 minutes to an hour. Here the meat easily lags behind the bones.
- Smoking - lasts about 40 minutes and includes a permanent readiness check. A small fish is considered ready, provided that the flesh at the base of the dorsal fin becomes white. A large one can be eaten when pieces of pulp, extracted from the back along the ridge, acquire a white color, a soft consistency. The scales are then colored to a golden color. At this stage, the carcass is saturated with smoke.