Another first on my Camp Chef Woodwind SG pellet grill - smoked fish. Not smoking for immediate consumption at the dinner table, but rather the kind you can snack over the next week or two. Like I used to do in my Bradley smoker and it took about 8 hours to do.
For this batch (rainbow trout), I changed my process to follow one suggested by Camp Chef. I salt & peppered the trout fillets last night and added a layer of brown sugar. I covered with saran wrap and put them in the fridge overnight. Got up at O'Dark thirty this AM and fired up the grill to run at Lo Smoke (160F). I then took the fillets out of the fridge, un-wrapped them, and wiped them off with a paper towel to remove most of the salt, pepper, & sugar. they called for putting them back into the fridge to let the pellicle form, but I skipped that step. I laid them out on a baking sheet and put them into the grill and inserted the IT probe into one of the thicker fillets.
I checked the IT every hour looking for that 140F reading and didn't find it until the time elapsed hit 4 hours. At this point, the IT read 141F. I pulled the baking sheet out and sampled the result. Not bad! Not as good as wet brining and smoking in my Bradley with a layer of brown sugar added to each fillet as it went into the Bradley. But not bad.
The next batch of smoked fish will be wet brined instead of dry brined and I will put the brown sugar on when it goes into the grill. Life is good.
For this batch (rainbow trout), I changed my process to follow one suggested by Camp Chef. I salt & peppered the trout fillets last night and added a layer of brown sugar. I covered with saran wrap and put them in the fridge overnight. Got up at O'Dark thirty this AM and fired up the grill to run at Lo Smoke (160F). I then took the fillets out of the fridge, un-wrapped them, and wiped them off with a paper towel to remove most of the salt, pepper, & sugar. they called for putting them back into the fridge to let the pellicle form, but I skipped that step. I laid them out on a baking sheet and put them into the grill and inserted the IT probe into one of the thicker fillets.
I checked the IT every hour looking for that 140F reading and didn't find it until the time elapsed hit 4 hours. At this point, the IT read 141F. I pulled the baking sheet out and sampled the result. Not bad! Not as good as wet brining and smoking in my Bradley with a layer of brown sugar added to each fillet as it went into the Bradley. But not bad.
The next batch of smoked fish will be wet brined instead of dry brined and I will put the brown sugar on when it goes into the grill. Life is good.
