Smoking Again Today

A buddy called me last week to say a friend had given him a lake trout and he was wondering if I'd smoke it for him next time I did a smoke so I said to bring it to the gun club monday night and I'd smoke it with a brookie and two rainbows I set aside recently. I thawed the fish, brined it about 20 hours in a dry brine mixture of brown sugar, kosher salt, garlic powder, paprika and fresh ground pepper. This morning I put it all in the Bradley smoker using maple flavoured bisquettes. We should have some tasty treats for the next few weekends at two provincial trapshooting championship tournaments(SK & AB) and at the upcoming Western Zone shoot and Canadian Championships. Fishing will be on hold for July! Back at it after Canadians(Aug 6-8).

 

Finished it when the internal temp reached 145 degrees. Started it at 170 degrees. After one hour I rotated the trays and turned the temp to 180, one more hour and did another top to bottom rotation and turned the temp up to 190, on the third rotation I turned the trays around 180 degrees and turned the temp to 220 to finish it for the last hour. When the smoke generator shut off at the 4 hour preset time I used a temp probe to check the fish and the pieces were at a perfect 145 so shut it down, pulled the trays out and stacked them over the sink in the kitchen to get a good air flow around them with a house fan placed on low to help cool quicker since it's a warm day. Sure smell great! Can't wait to try a piece for lunch with a nice fresh salad!!