Directions

1. Combine all the wet cure ingredients in a pot and heat until the salt and sugar is completely dissolved. Heating is required as the water will be close to fully saturated and will take forever to dissolve at room temperature.

2. Allow to cool completely and chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours.

3. Scale and remove the fillets from you Trout but leave the skin on. Place your Trout sides in the refrigerator completely submerged in a nonreactive container for up to 1 hour per cm thickness of fillets.

4. Remove from brine and soak in fresh cold water 15 to 20 minutes to remove some of the saltiness and sweeten them a little. Pat dry and place them on racks uncovered skin side down in your refrigerator for 24 hours. This has the added advantage of allowing the salt to further penetrate the flesh and dry the surface of the fish to form a pellicle for the smoke to stick to.

5. Remove from the refrigerator Place Trout skin side down on racks or hang them from dowels in your Smoker.

6. Allow the temperature of the fish to equalise with the ambient temperature of your smoker for an hour or two before smoking. This is important as condensation will develop on your fish resulting in an inferior product if your fish is cooler than the smoker!

7. Smoke your Trout with your Smokai Smoke Generatoron low setting for 8 to 12 hours depending on how smokey you like your food. The fish will firm up during the smoking process as a result of water loss condensing the flavor and making it easier to cut.

8. The pin bones (fine bones that run down the centre) should now be protruding from the flesh and easily removed with tweezers or long nosed pliers.

9. You can eat it straight but will definitely benefit for an ageing period of 24 to 48 hours in the fridge wrapped tightly in Glad Wrap with a bread board and weight on top to allow the smoke compounds to permeate the flesh and balance the flavour.

WOOD SUGGESTIONS

1. MAPLE WOODCHIP