Post a picture you took in the last week.

[Fish Felon]

[Quack]

What’s the instructions on smoking those walters? Looks great!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Fish Felon]

What’s the instructions on smoking those walters? Looks great!!

Put them in a brine for a day....basic brine---cup of kosher salt, cup of brown sugar, gallon and a half of water, and I've been putting in a little canning salt along with distilled white vinegar....basically it's a brine combined with a toned down pickling recipe. In my opinion, the acidity of the vinegar helps break down the proteins and make a fish like a walleye....considered to not be very good for smoking compared to traditional, more oily fish.....it makes them juicier than just using a straight kosher salt/sugar/water brine.

As with most smoking it's far more about the brine than it is the cooking part. I tend to just watch stuff and pull it when it's done based off what I see versus following a set time and temperature. I think on these I had them going at 200-250 and it didn't take real long until they were falling apart and done. I'm guessing it was somewhere a little under to a little over an hour.

[Quack]

Thanks for being willing to educate the unwashed! I don’t know much about smoking and don’t have the free time to refine it as a craft. I’ve wanted to smoke walleyes but catch so few I’d hate to waste them when a lot of people say they aren’t “right” for smoking.

I think walleyes are about the easiest for me to catch when I can get out. Pike and suckers can be good smoked ... but those bones... no thanks.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Fish Felon]

You know.....smoking up some walleyes or other fish would be the best way to start. They're the easiest to do, and would be a lot easier place to start than what I chose---wild duck.

Fish are easy....you make a simple brine, soak them in it a day, and they cook up pretty fast. If you have a grill, gas or charcoal, you can throw some wood chips on them...I'd reccomend apple or pecan (type of tree the wood chips are chopped from, which you can buy a bag at home depot, menards, Walmart, etc., for $5-$6, soak them in a container like an ice cream bucket overnight as well so they go on your heat source saturated and smoke more). All you do is throw the wood chips on your grill and let it smoke at low heat. If the fish aren't quite thoroughly cooked once the chips are done or the coals go out, you can finish them in the oven...the smoking part is at the beginning and then tapers off, so pretty much all the flavors from smoking would already be set so it's no big deal to finish them in an oven.

Brine = cup of kosher salt, cup of brown sugar, to a gallon of water.

Expand as needed if you have more fish than what a gallon will do. I typically mix my brine up in a big enough cooler and then toss the fish in. You can add all kinds of stuff to that brine, but it'll work on it's own and is as simple as it gets for someone new to it. There's all kinds of recipes with stuff like soy sauce, Worcestershire, syrup, honey, various spices, seasoned salts, etc.

[maplelakeduckslayer]

You know.....smoking up some walleyes or other fish would be the best way to start. They're the easiest to do, and would be a lot easier place to start than what I chose---wild duck.

Fish are easy....you make a simple brine, soak them in it a day, and they cook up pretty fast. If you have a grill, gas or charcoal, you can throw some wood chips on them...I'd reccomend apple or pecan (type of tree the wood chips are chopped from, which you can buy a bag at home depot, menards, Walmart, etc., for $5-$6, soak them in a container like an ice cream bucket overnight as well so they go on your heat source saturated and smoke more). All you do is throw the wood chips on your grill and let it smoke at low heat. If the fish aren't quite thoroughly cooked once the chips are done or the coals go out, you can finish them in the oven...the smoking part is at the beginning and then tapers off, so pretty much all the flavors from smoking would already be set so it's no big deal to finish them in an oven.

Brine = cup of kosher salt, cup of brown sugar, to a gallon of water.

Expand as needed if you have more fish than what a gallon will do. I typically mix my brine up in a big enough cooler and then toss the fish in. You can add all kinds of stuff to that brine, but it'll work on it's own and is as simple as it gets for someone new to it. There's all kinds of recipes with stuff like soy sauce, Worcestershire, syrup, honey, various spices, seasoned salts, etc.

Remember your rant about the cost of those smoking chips vs cost o beer...fleet farm for the win. You get a bag about 1.5x the size for 2.99 vs homo Depot or the others

[maplelakeduckslayer]

Actually $3.99 i guess just looked...still a much better deal

[Quack]

Or you can just cut up some dead apple, maple, or oak branches


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[maplelakeduckslayer]

Ya I chopped down an apple at my mom's a bit ago. Kinda hard to find pecan and hickory trees around here though

[Fish Felon]

Remember your rant about the cost of those smoking chips vs cost to beer...fleet farm for the win. You get a bag about 1.5x the size for 2.99 vs homo Depot or the others

Oh, I remember it....and think they're a total rip-off! Haha!

I certainly didn't use them, but I figured for a guy who's starting out and never smoked anything before they'd offer a very simple chopped up example that's clearly labeled. My thought process was after trying to remember how confused I was when doing my first smoke and recommending the store bought chips as the easiest and least confusing way to go....if his fish don't turn out well then at least he won't have to question if the chips were part of the problem.