Holy Mackerel! First of 2 batches of smoked Norwegian mackerel.

[Jules V.]

Opps wrong forum.   Probably been spending  too much time in the mods section. Mods please move it!

My Filipino friends have been begging for smoked mackerel  so here it goes. Roughly 60 lbs totalling 56 pieces smoked in 2 batches using 3 racks on my custom smoker. It's an ethnic delicacy traditionally eaten for breakfast along with rice, and fried eggs. Somewhat similar to Japanese saba shioyaki except it's brined for 24 hours and smoked anywhere between 200-250F for 4-5 hours. Saba shioyaki are roasted or grilled at 450-525F.

[qrczak1]

This looks gooooood

[JEBIV]

That looks awesome

[RRRanger99]

Looks delish!

[Firemunkee]

Looks delicious!! So beg Jules for food and he will eventually have some for you!

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Weber Kettle Club mobile app

[Jules V.]

Looks delicious!! So beg Jules for food and he will eventually have some for you!

Yeah but sometimes it takes over a year.  Cleaning 5 dozen fish can be a chore.

[Darko]

That looks fantastic!

[qrczak1]

Did you use water pan?

[Jules V.]

Did you use water pan?

As you're probably aware, Norwegian mackerel is a very oily, buttery fish that adding water in the pan is totally unnecessary especially when smoked in large quantities. In this case, it's 28 pieces totalling roughly 25 lbs. It creates more than enough moisture of its own within the smoking chamber that adding water in the pan can be detrimental.  The added steam/moisture from the water  will make the charcoal work very hard to get up to temperature.    The fish having a high fat content makes it very forgiving to smoke in terms of temperature fluctuations or being smoked/cooked too long. In short, the likelihood of drying it out is quite slim.

[qrczak1]

Thnx! That's why I was asking.

[Transit98]

Look great. What type of wood did you use?


Sent from my iPhone using Weber Kettle Club

[Jules V.]

Look great. What type of wood did you use?

Cherry

[qrczak1]

And the directly above the fire, right?

[qrczak1]

Or with a deflector?

[Jules V.]

Or with a deflector?

I used a heat shield along with a diffuser identical to the setup below.