Seasoned smokers advice please -sort of NB

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dralex

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I know there are a few of you out there who carry on board smoking kits ( I'm not talking about pipes and cigs). I've just started using an old aluminium steamer, and my first foray into smokehouse cooking was with duck breasts. I used a mixture of rice and tea leaves to smoke duck marinated in sesame oil, juniper, sugar and salt with a bit of chilli. I think it's the more celtic contingent who use this technology, but are you willing to share your smoking secrets and give me suggestions for smoking mixtures and marinades?

THis post is sort of boaty because it gives us more ways to enjoy our mackerel and prawns in the summer.

Cheers

Alex

<hr width=100% size=1>Life's too short- do it now./forums/images/icons/wink.gif
 
Great post Alex, somebody had to bring it up.

I have a friend who's a great fan of the alabaster pipe, arguing that it removes impurities and gives a cool smoke. Despite its porous surface, it is embued with anti-histerectums and can be safely passed. He particularly recommends a herbal mixture from his hometown of Bialystok (twinned with Arbroath).

I put the mackerels and prawns suggestion to him, but he's not keeping up just now. He's going to share his smoking secrets when he comes-to.

Cheers
Tom

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He's just come to and muttered the following url<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.3men.com/smoked.htm> suggestion</A>

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A few relatives of mine are heavilly into curing and smoking their own meats and fish. One of them recentll made me a breakfast with pork cured with a product call Buckboard Bacon Cure, available from a US company called Hi Mountain. It was deliecious. I've also had salmon cured with the same product and smoked...again delicious.
I'll have to ask my nephew what he does for curing and smoking. As he lives in Indonesia he can't get cured meats he's used to at the market, and so cures all his own. Even makes his own pepperoni so the kids can have pepperoni pizza.

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Well, I'm a fairly virgin smokey having used them for twenty or so years but only using the oak sawdust that comes pre-prepared in polybags either from manufacturers (ABU is one). You have made me think that I ought to be a little more adventurous. The only tricks that I have learnt is that usually less is more and that whatever is being smoked needs to be of an even thickness. The things that I have smoked inlcude:

Mackeral - easy cheap and good
Eels - probably my favourite although eels are now fast becoming an endangered species
Trout - easy, smoke small ones whole, use fillet for bigger ones
Cod - as trout

I'm currently using an ABU smoker which has proved very efficient, if a liitle small. This is a purpose built box with a tray that covers the smoking materials at the bottom, a rack to hold the stuff to be smoked and tight fitting sliding lid to regulate the degree of smoke. The whole sits on a base and uses a saucer of meths below that burns for 10 mins or so, sufficient to fire up the oak dust. Very simple and quick to use.

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Chris

Do you use the smoker on board the boat? I wondered about sitting one on the gas BBQ as a heat source?

Robin



<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>
 
No, it sits in the garden but I don't see any reason why not. This year I have taken to using disposable BBQs in the BBQ on the pushpit rail and that worked very successfully. The ABU smoker is the same size or smaller than a disposable so it should be OK. The only problem I foresee is the meths flame being blown out on the drafty BBQ position. Or the skipper drinking the meths before the barbie....

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I can't help with any recipies etc, as I am still at the theory stage but I have an excellent book on the subject, 'Home Smoking and Curing' by Keith Erlandson, well worth the price at £7.99

Martin

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Chris

We have a circular Magma BBQ which doesn't use imitation coals and can be used without a cover plate as a simple stove burner, I wondered if we could sit the smoker on this rather than use meths burners? I'm not keen on using meths flames on board and as you said I think the wind would be a big problem anyway. I don't have a smoker so I'm just guessing from the pics on websites and the one in Nauticalia's catalogue. We seem to be able to catch mackerel very easily for "bait" then not too much so far with the bait itself! Years ago we use to souse mackerel fillets in the pressure cooker but we no longer carry it on board and SWMBO has lost interest in soused mackerel, but we both like it smoked and it makes an unbelievably good pate.

Robin

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>
 
Any ideas where we can see what sort of smokers are available?

Rather annoyingly, SWMBO made me throw away a simple flat and cheap version (which I had only used once or twice with not particularly impressive results). Somehow I felt I was doing the wrong thing and should perhaps of brought it into the office for safety.

Increasingly, my office is becoming a chronological repository of my life - and I don't mean just for editions of Yachting Monthly, 1964 to date. Anyone else finding the same symptoms?

<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Looking around, there are all kinds of boaty bits here which I've saved! Since what we do in the office is vaguely boaty, they blend in quite well.

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Sounds rather cosy to me. We develop and market a technology for processing sewage, cess and septic sludge - not quite the same really. Our mooring is about half an hour from the office too - wish I could see it from the window . . .
(Might keep me off the forum too!)

<hr width=100% size=1>Khyber
 
Try google with 'fish smokers' and you'll get a load of them. Can't vouch for any other than the ABU one which I bought a couple of years ago for about £40. I see that you can spend anything from about £40 up to £200 depending upon size and complexity. www.thebbq.co.uk seemed to have a good selection.

I've taken to religiously chucking out all monthlies, then if I want a particular article I just aks here someone is bound to have read it and can give the summary :-)

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I guess you might get away with it if was a type like the ABU (I'm really not an agent for them!) because it relies upon an external heat source to fire up the oak. I have a force 10 BBQ that is supposed to use real charcoal, we've used it a few times but it drips real fat over the cockpit combing hence the disposables.

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Re BBQs & fat dripping

Chris

Thanks, it might be worth a try. Maybe I could make a test one up out of some old kitchen pans!

Our original BBQ was the Magma charcoal one and usually the dripping fat flashed off fast enough on the hot coals not to be a problem but on the gas one, the coals are replaced by a S/S heat distribution plate. There is a drip tray underneath but we learned very quickly to a) remove as much fat from meats as possible, especially chicken skin, duck skin/fat and b) to use a secondary container on the grill itself as a drip tray. We have a selection of cheap S/S trays (some from Lymington market) and an old grill toast rack to sit in one if needed. We do all sorts on the BBQ from steaks, duckand fish to full out roast beef joints with roast tatties and all, and no longer have drips. Our BBQ is mounted on the pushpit and overhangs outboard.

Robin

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>
 
Re: Re BBQs & fat dripping

Thanks for the tips, although I think that we are now wedded to the disposables and, if truth be known, MrsE isn't a great BBQ fan so we don't use it as much as we could.

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i can recommend this <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.troutfishing.co.uk/ishop/243/shopscr2361.html>smoker</A>

i know this sounds dubious and unlikely but we caught so many mackerel in and around the Kyles of Bute one year that without the smoker we'd have chucked 'em back ... we changed the taste by adding diiferent wines etc. it is bluidy good and i have ordered one ... costs £50 and uses oak chips .. can't think what tea leaves & rice tastes like, though!! .......

g8870.jpg



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