Georgia's Hickory Smoked Bluefish

The trouble with Bluefish is that when you find one, you're quite likely to find a few more, or even a whole school. Being ravenous predators, they're not that hard to catch. and  you're apt to wind up with quite a few. Bluefish get seriously torn up by hooks, so it's probably not polite to play catch and release with them.

While Bluefish are delicious fresh, they don't freeze well; all the fats and oils turn rancid quickly, and it's best to find something to do with the rest of them fairly quickly.

For many, the solution is to smoke them.  Bluefish are excellent smoked, and every year we find at least one opportunity to make smoked Bluefish.

To prepare Blues for smoking, I fillet them and remove the ribs, but leave the skin on.  Blues are easy to filet; I'd rather fillet ten Blues than one Striped Bass, but I also have an electric filet knife, which helps quite a bit. These fillets have been brined and sprayed with cooking oil, which accounts for some of the odd color. (But remember that Bluefish flesh is a faint blue before it's cooked).

Our guidance document from the "Bluefish Cookbook" by Greta Jacobs and Jane Alexander. We follow this a bit like pirates in "Pirates of the Caribbean" follow the Pirates Code, making adjustments as fits the situation.

The brine is pretty simple, salt, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder (or in this case dried chopped onion) and lemon juice.  Georgia says cut the salt if the fillets are small.

The fillets brine for 8-12 hours in the refrigerator, stirred occasionally.

Our smoker is simply a  Brinkmann Deluxe Charcoal Smoker, which we bought used for $20 at the thrift shop up the road, after the last one rusted out (and was hit by a car in the garage. We fire it with briquettes, and generate smoke using water soaked hickory wood salvaged from the hickory tree that we had to take down after Hurricane Irene. A little hickory wood goes a long way. We have several lifetimes supply in the wood pile.

This is more of a warm smoke than a cold smoke; the fish is also cooked as it is smoked. It takes 1.5 to three hours, depending on the size of the fillets. These, off fish ranging from 1-3 lbs, took about 2 hours. We exchange the two racks about mid way through, (photo above).

When done, the fillets are firm and almost dry to the touch (there is some residual oil on the surface). It is pretty well preserved, you can send it in the mail, but I suggest you keep it in a sealed container in the refrigerator for a few days, or in the freezer for months of storage. It never lasts that long.