smoked catfish

[smokeydobee]

I smoked a batch of channel catfish last weekend. I gutted them and then cut them into chunks -and brined them for 3 hours in a basic fish brine. I then smoked them with hickory for about 2 hours at 190 degrees. They did not turn out as well as I have had before, I smoked a fillet of pacific salmon at the same time from the same brine and it was much better. I think I could have brined the catfish longer because although I got plenty of smoke they werent salty as deep as I would have liked , where the salmon fillets were. Or I may try filleting the catfish next time.

 

[rowane]

It probably had to do with the density of the catfish. Its a very dense fish and should yield better results with fillet strips. Tried some like this at a get together and it was great.

 

[chrish]

well your on your way to learning to smoke some great river fish.
first off size of fish matters (in this case

) to big and youll have a muddy taste and to small to many bones and not really worth smoking,

10 to 12 inch fish is ideal size but 15-20 inch fish is getting to the limit, this encludes catfish,channels,flatheads,carp, you can alo do bass,white ass,drum,,

the first thing you did wrong, brine it longer and heavy smoke it for at least 6 hrs till the meat gets to 160 in the middle, do that and youll be fine.

 

[zapper]

You are talking two different animals here when you try to compare salmon to catfish, salmon was made for smoking. Well at least it has a heavier taste and more oil that kind of lends itself to being smoked better I feel.

Now for the cats, I would have to go along with doing fillets or whole skined fish, just to kind of help keep the size uniform or the mass up to allow for a longer smoke without the moisture loss. (unless you were actually smoking to perserve, and then maybe thin the meat out to allow for better drying)