I’ve never liked trout, grilled at least. I finally had some smoked that a buddy did last summer and I was hooked. Very similar to smoked salmon, which is arguably my favorite food, both to cook & to eat.
So a couple days ago I loaded up some fishing gear onto my motorcycle and headed to the mountains. After getting skunked on the river, I found a pretty amazing lake where the fish couldn’t get enough of my cheapo spinner lures.
I cleaned and dry brined these guys in about a 6:1 brown sugar:salt mix for about 24 hours before throwing them on the kettle to smoke at around 200*. After about 30 min. I pulled the remaining fins, bones & skin, then back on to smoke for another 20-30 min. or so. The thinner fillets ended up near jerky, but that’s still a winner for me.
Removing trout bones is a huge PITA (please let me know if you have any tricks), but it might have just been worth it. This catch was pretty damn delicious. Probably headed back up a couple times next week with the kids and some buddies to pull a few more. [emoji476]
-Jed