Albacore Tuna Belly....plus

[cmayna]

Hey all. Been getting pressured by a deck hand to provide some more smoked Alby belly pieces. Them bellies are way too big as whole so I cut up each one into 6+ pieces which allows more smoke to meat/fat absorbtion as well as easier to woof down. Dry brined using my regular Salmon brine of salt/brown sugar for 7 hours. Smoked for 5 hours in my MES40.

Oh....and after cutting up the belly pieces, the night before, realized I was going to have some extra room and since I had a couple large Salmon pieces thawed,.....

Also the Alby belly is very oily and drippy, I did not want it to drip down on the Salmon, thus why I stacked the Salmon on the right of each rack. Now the Alby can drip on itself.

And what a oily mess at the bottom of the smoker. Thank goodness for the tray down below. Yes, this smoker is dedicated to fish.

Cheers
Craig

 

[jcam222]

Man I bet that's tasty!!

 

[02ebz06]

That's some good eats there!

 

[civilsmoker]

Very nice, I can almost taste it on a fresh cut salad!

 

[Steve H]

I bet that is good!

 

[gmc2003]

It looks and sound great Craig.

Point for sure
Chris

 

[JLeonard]

Looks screen licking good!

Jim

 

[hooked on smoke]

Where did you get the albacore? I used to go out of San Diego on overnight trips and bring home some nice fish. That was many years ago. I haven't seen or heard of any being caught in a long time. Thanks for sharing, those look amazing.

 

[cmayna]

Got my recent batch outside of Santa Cruz, CA. Otherwise, Fort Bragg, Halfmoon Bay, etc.

 

[jdranchman]

I bet is smells and tastes as good as it looks! This has got me thinking about what to do with my BF and YF that I got this year. What wood did you use?

 

[forktender]

I bet is smells and tastes as good as it looks! This has got me thinking about what to do with my BF and YF that I got this year. What wood did you use?

I smoke about 300 lbs of tuna a year. I use a 50/50 mixture of cherry and hickory, if I have apple wood on hand I'll throw a little of that in as well.
Albacore smokes the best, with the bellies being the preferred cut. Then bluefin, then yellowfin then bigeye tuna, in that order.

Craig's tuna bellies, look like they turned out great. I love that stuff mixed with a little cream cheese, red onion, capers and diced celery on a toasted bagel or stuffed into half of a embalsa pickled jalapeno or on club crackers. That and a hoppy IPA, Modelo negro or. Shiner Bock and a ball games and I'm a happy camper. I want to try to make some fresh sourdough bagels this year to smother with my smoked tuna spread.
People go nuts over the stuff., it's good shit, for sure!!!
Dan.