Smoked Steelhead Trout

[scott farm]

I had asked the question in a live chat maybe a month ago. I’m looking to see if anyone has used any of the products from here to cure steelhead and smoke. I’m tired of the brown sugar/salt brine and smoke combo. Someone had replied that the bloody mary seasoning was good but can’t recall if it was jerky mix or what it was. A lake Erie tributary runs right through my back field so I have easy access to get fish to experiment with. To clarify, this is for me to eat and share with friends. Any “different” recipes are also welcome.

[Jonathon]

scott farm Londyn (or social media person) will be bringing back some trout from a trip she is on. I am planning on trying a few different methods some with cure and some just salt. I think they would have been talking about the shake, not the jerky seasoning as that is designed for jerky and might make fish too salty. Sorry, if you give us a couple of weeks (she gets back Friday) we can speak more from experience.

[scott farm]

I’m a patient man, i can wait. Do you have any idea what the percentage salt is in the jerky and sausage mix is roughly if you used the whole pack as recommended? For example, the buffalo brat mix I finally got to use this weekend says .75 lb/25 lb meat. How much salt is in that whole pack? If the total salt in the spice mix falls within that 2.5-3.5% zone per pound of meat, i would try as is for a cure. I have had some dried meat and smoked fish prepared as high as 6% salt content and found them enjoyable. If the percentage of salt in the packs is lower, I could supplement the salt separately.

[Jonathon]

scott farm I don’t have an exact amount but let me know a seasoning or two (we REALLY can’t abuse this) and I will ask Excalibur for an LOP (letter of predominance) and while that wont be dead on it will give us an idea of what range we need to be in. Let me know one or two others aside from the bloody mary and I will get that information, seeing as we are doing it too we can kind of go ahead of you and give some guidance!

[scott farm]

Jonathon The pepper and garlic is a good one and so is the Habanero Lime. I wouldn’t expect them to give details. I was hoping they could give a typical window that they shoot for.

[Jonathon]

scott farm I will have our purchasing department ask for these details and share.

[scott farm]

Well I couldn’t wait for steelhead to start running. Just sent a belly, 6 jowls, 2 butts worth of buckboard off to bacon land and 3 hams are defrosting waiting for brine. I took 2 jowls and did them with jerky spice mix just to see what it would do. Will follow up post smoker to see what it did. Archery season starts here on the 3rd so I needed to free up some freezer space.

[Jonathon]

scott farm Also, the person who went to table rock got skunked. Technically they never went as no one thought to call ahead and reserve a boat on one of the busiest weeks of the year!

[scott farm]

Jonathon just sliced and tried some of the bacon i did with the jerky mix. I did some others the way I normally do with an dry EQ at 2.5 percent salt. The jowls made with jerky mix were less salty than my traditional bacon cure. Pretty sure this will work for fish now. I used habanero lime and pepper garlic. Didn’t take much flavor. Habanero has some late heat come through and the pepper garlic was feint but still there. I used the same rate per pound of meet as instructed with the jerky mix. May try 10% extra next time.