How to smoke fish

Fish is a wonderful product. Its nutritional value is high, it has a lot of easily digestible fats and high-quality proteins. The needs of the human body in the basic mineral elements, such as potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, sodium can be completely compensated by fish products. Methods to extend the shelf life of these products have long been known - it is salting, as well as smoking. However, not everyone knows how to properly smoke fish.

Let's talk today about how to smoke fish.

You can smoke it by two methods: cold and hot.

Hot smoking is quicker, however, the shelf life of a small one is not more than 5 days. In nature, a smokehouse is usually arranged on a clay bank, in it a square horizontal depression is digged, at its end a vertical hole is made, over which a fairly wide tube is stacked from a tree or stones so that it can hang several fish at once. Apply also an iron or wooden barrel without a bottom. Sometimes they do this: in the slope of the cliff make a chimney in the form of a slightly inclined trihedral, square or round trench approximately 2 m in length and about the width with a shovel. At the same time, on the obtuse side of the slope, a furnace having approximately 0.5 x 0.5 m sides should be made. Its top should be located at the same level with the upper part of the trench. On the opposite end of the chimney it is necessary to put a smoking (box, barrel without a bottom, basket, tank, etc.). All the cracks in this cell should be covered with clay. The open part of the chimney must be covered from above with stones, pieces of old iron, turf, thick branches and carefully covered with earth.

Next, before smoked fish, you must make a hanger (pieces 5 or 6) from knots with a diameter of about 25-35 mm so that their length exceeds the diameter of the smoking chamber. Of nails or thick wire, you need to make about 15 hooks, designed to hang them on the hangers. When your fish is placed in a smokehouse, it is required to cover it with a lid (iron, plywood or bottom of the barrel). Appeared from behind the hanging slots between the camera and the lid will be the exit for the smoke.

Before you smoke the fish, it needs to be prepared in such a way: it must be gutted, remove the gills, blood, rinse well and put in saline solution for three to four hours. After this, the fish must be pulled out, dried, through mouth into the carcass to the tail, insert a stick and wrap the fish a little with several turns of twine so that the fish does not fall apart during smoking. Then it must be hung in the chimney so that the fish do not come into contact with the wall of the chamber and with each other. Keep fish in the smoke for 3-4 hours with a temperature of 80-120 ° C. The best firewood for smoking is aspen, alder. Most suitable for this are rotten old stumps, branches, trunks. You can use sawdust.

Now tell you how to smoke the fish by another method. To do this, fresh fish must be gutted, cut out the gills, carefully wipe the blood clots, so that the meat does not have an unpleasant smell. Scales should not be removed. Before smoking a fish, it should be rubbed on the outside and inside with salt, put into a bowl and poured with salt. Salts should not be more than 12% of the weight of fish. Then the fish should be put in a cool dark place under the load. Salt should be about 16 hours (this depends on the size). Then the fish needs to be dried well, having hung it for this purpose in the wind in the shade; It is better to do this under a canopy, covering with gauze from flies. Drying should be no less than 8 hours, as insufficiently dried fish can quickly become moldy.

Large fish should be tied with twine so that a loop forms from the end of the twine, passed through the eyes; For it will be convenient to hang fish in the smokehouse. In the abdomen should be inserted rod-spacers. It is worth remembering that for smoking you can not use coniferous species of trees or raw firewood. It will be good to add heather, juniper, aromatic herbs: sage, wormwood, basil, Bogorodskaya grass , etc. Fish smell 3-4 hours. After one hour of smoking, the temperature should be gradually reduced. This will prevent the fish from drying and losing fat.

The readiness of smoked fish can be determined by breakdown. The absence of blood around the ridge, easy lagging of the skin, the presence of a small amount of juice between meat and skin means that the fish is ready.