Smoked Crappie?

[Glowgood Jigster]

I have heard that smoked crappie and bluegill are pretty good. I've smoked salmon and trout and ocean bass, but not panfish. Anybody smoke their crappie, and how do you do it? Skin on fillet, skin off, whole scaled and gutted/deheaded? Just looking for another way to enjoy our crappie this next year. Thanks!

[horseshoer]

I had a friend back in TX who has a deer processing bus. that does close to 15,000 deer per season. I took him a bunch of crappie & white bass gutted and washed only and did em on the racks the sausage hung from in his smoke sheds using mesquite. Layed em on the racks with belly flaps open/down. Excellent.

As a kid we had an old fridge we took the door gaskets off cut a hole in top for 4" stovepipe/flue, cut about a 12" hole in the bottom and dug a firepit
with a short 12" wide tail (trench) coming a couple ft off one end of it. The bottom hole of the fridge sat over it, the firepit was to the rear of the fridge and kept covered with a piece of sheet metal, kept askew just enough to allow air flow. One wire rack was left in the very bottom of the fridge and we put a cpl rebar running crossways near the top. We smoked carp, redhorse, buffalo (fish) in it. Gutted them and washed very very well then hung em on the rebar by hooks running thru both eyes. When the bodies fell away from the heads the fish was done smoking, would pile up on that bottom rack.
This was an old-style fridge that had the motor underneath (removed).

[Blue Duck]

I smoke them with the skin on. Just cut the head off and take the guts out. Brine them for 8 to 12 hours and the into the smoker.........

[Downwind]

yes

[Downwind]

test

[okiefish]

I have smoked larger "slabs" before and love them.
My Grandad loved smoked fish and he lived near lake erie, when i was a kid we often bought him smoked whitefish and took them to him. He loved them and showed me how to eat them.
When I got me new cookshack smoker it cam with a "coldsmoke plate" that allows me to do a cold smoke on fich, cheeses or anything i wanted.

I gutted the crappie, and left heads on.. brined them in salt brine for 10-12 hours. then you dry the fish inside and out with a paper towel, and place on reck or hang with gutcavity open.
the cold smoke never gets above 100-110 degrees, and I smoked until the meat was done and flaky and dried out some from when i put it in the smoker.

MMMMM good eating I have also experimented with adding other seasonings to the brine, old bay, cajun etc.

Enjoy...

[Glowgood Jigster]

Okay, I have one other question: What kind of chips do you use to smoke your fish? Alder? Maple? Hickory? Apple? Cherry? Thanks!

[luvjign]

I smoke them with the skin on. Just cut the head off and take the guts out. Brine them for 8 to 12 hours and the into the smoker.........

Hey Blue Duck, what's your brine consist of? Until reading this thread, I "wasn't thinking outside the box" (so they say), and was trying the smoked fish recipes with fillets (no skin). This jogged my thinker

I'm a fried-food grease-aholic, but my Doc says if I keep eating the grease, my cholesterol is gonna reach 4 million

Thanks

[john h]

i tired to smoke fish before but ran out of matches. they were to hard to light ....nah seriously there isnt many fish that arent good smoked.

[willsjwills]

Are they refrigerated while in the brine?