Smoking Tips

The kokanee fishing season is fast approaching and I thought I’d share a couple of tricks we use when smoking fish. If you have trouble with the fish sticking to the grill, the fish above dripping on those below, or find that grills are difficult to clean, consider placing the fish on parchment paper and then on the grill. As the photos below show, we place the fish on parchment paper and then use a small utility knife to cut around the fish, leaving about ¼ inch of paper exposed. Too little paper exposed leads to more drips and more cleaning difficulties while too much paper slows down heat transfer inside the smoker. Using parchment paper also reveals how much fish shrink while smoking. We’ve found that fish lose about 20% - 25% of their weight during smoking.

We vacuum seal individual fillets after smoking and in the past we have had the seals break. It appeared that fish oil drawn from the fish by the vacuum contaminated the seal area, so I started placing fillets in the freezer for 45 minutes; long enough to thicken the oil but not long enough to freeze a fillet. During cold weather I used to place the fillets on a table on the patio but a fox (we suspect) stole 8 fillets and left the parchment paper scattered around the property. I also select the “mild” option on the vacuum sealer so as not to suck out as much oil. We still had a few seal breaks which I eventually traced to pin bones sometimes poking holes in the bag material. A light vacuum helped but now I place a 1 inch by 3 inch piece of parchment paper over the pin bones and rarely have seal breakage. Costco sometimes carries large, double rolls of parchment paper at an attractive price in the paper/cooking section.


Attachment 9368Attachment 9369Attachment 9370Attachment 9371

Thanks for the tips

Great tips kokanee64, thank you...

You're welcome. After using parchment paper for several years, I wouldn't smoke fish without it because grill cleaning becomes a breeze, and I hate cleaning grills.

Thats an interesting tip. Ill try this next time I go out salmon fishing. Ive been reading a lot about smoking fishes online and the best tips are the ones from people who actually smoke their fishes.