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Cold smoking trout


Ruedeleglise

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I had some cold smoked rainbow trout today. It had a much more subtle flavour compared to salmon. I have not been able to find any reference to cold smoking trout. Is the procedure the same as with salmon?  Any advice / recipe etc would be gratefully received. 

Edited by Ruedeleglise
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Trout vary in size a lot. Some I get given to smoke are like smallish salmon but others are like big mackerel. Roughly how long and how thick are the fillets? For medium size trout I would go for about 14 hours, for small trout I would cure for about 12 hours. If they are very small then you may only need 8-10 hours.

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The smoking time is more of a moving feast and will depend on how consistent you want your smoked trout batches to be. Although people think that the smoking period is about adding smoke flavour (which it is in one respect) they often do not realise that it is more importantly about the removal of moisture from the fish. Ideally you are looking for an ~18% drop in weight from the fresh fillet to the completed smoke salmon/trout product. Commercially, a proportion of this water is removed during the brining phase  but the remainder is removed during the smoke. This is why it is best to smoke it at ~20-24 C with a good flow of air/smoke passing over the surfaces of the fish.

Unfortunately, many of the home cure recipes you see in books rely on a long salting process using an excess of salt to remove more water. This usually results in a very salty end product but reduces the length of time required in the smoke. These recipes also often result in the water loss falling way below the desired 18%. This isn't too much of a problem as farmed salmon/trout can even be eaten raw, however the higher remaining water content means that the texture is not that of a commercial product.

To answer your question... Yes the smaller fillets will require less smoking time. To begin with I would suggest that you weigh the fillets before curing and then smoke them until they have lost between 15-18% of their initial weight. This will then correctly take into account the length time you have been salt curing. Once you have done this for a couple of batches you will soon be able to tell when they are ready just by their look and feel. As the fish loses more moisture the rate of water loss slows down so it is not something that has to be minute perfect. An extra hour or two at the end of the smoke is not going to ruin the fish.

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