Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As was written in another thread, I asked the question has any one tried smoking fish with dried chilli, as no one had I had to take up the challenge.
I bought 2 pieces of Atlantic Salmon, 1 x 450gm's and 1 x 350gms, the 450 piece I did with Farrah Sawdust, approx 11 bricks each side of the weber using indirect method, aluminum placed tray in weber to minimise direct cooking of the fish, my weber also has a top rack that you can fold the sides over to allow wood to be put in, I folded both back and placed a small strip of foil under the fold also to prevent direct cooking, I placed fish on another rack ontop of the folded sides and put a handful of jarrah sawdust (water soaked, and squeezed so not dripping) on the rocks each side and smoked for 40 minutes..................Beautiful

Now the chilli experiment, I had 50 small hyberno chillis (3-4cm long) not dried to a crisp but dry, set up the same as above, instead of Jarrah put 25 chilli either side, anti climax, chillis lasted around 10 minutes, so you would need around 200+ chilli's to last the cooking stage, and then have to keep lifting the lid to stoke it up, was a strong, pleasant burning (spice hot) smell that made eyes water a bit coming from the weber whilst chillis were burning, so finished off the cooking with jarrah.
All was not lost, the second piece had a slightly different flavour, delicious as well but hard to describe, but definitely no hot spicy taste what so ever, I doubt the spice from the chilli would transfer to the fish in the smoking process.
I feel like Mythbusters
Chilli dude if you have a lot of dried chilli's lying around then would be interesting to see what the result would be with a full chilli smoking process, but I again doubt the spice heat would transfer

I'd say that if you wanted a chilli smoke you would be better off marinating in chilli first and then doing a traditional smoking.

Or just smoke the chilli's ypurself

Yes JP, but it was of those idea's no one had tried, and I had a heap of chilli's, so these things have to be tried, but again it is a nice flavour

Nice try Nocky...

Perhaps the chilies may last longer and smoke a bit better if they were not dried out? I love to chuck fresh rosemary into the webber straight onto the heat beads so they smoke up and add a smoked rosemary flavour.

Interesting (and slightly disappointing) findings Nocky...
If you're going to try it again, can I suggest:
Wet some Jarrah sawdust
Mix in chopped chilli
leave to stand over-night (or longer as you please)
Then smoke the mixture...

Chilli is always stronger the next day. This will hopefully make the chillies last longer, and the interesting flavour you found may still prevail.

It would have been so much more pleasing had the heat transferred too

EB chilli's weren't super dry still bendable but maybe try them off the bush next time.
Maybe the go Kuda, i'm surprised the spice heat didn't transfer a little, the smoke from the weber made my eye's water and breathed some in was hot on the lungs, cleaned out some crap I can tell you, I'm thinking the jarrah cooking for the last 30 mins probably over powered the chilli, I'm not one to give in so will give it a go again after chilli season, saw the price of them in the shop's so will be wait for the home grown but Nigel should have plenty and also the flash smoker, so maybe challenge chillidude for the next try

I can't wait to hear about round two Nocky!

Don't forget to prick a few holes in those fresh chillies , they explode like an egg in a microwave.

Hey Guys

Family, work and Murphy's Law have conspired top keep me offline for nearly a week.

I've got two pork bellys curing at the moment to become bacon and they should be ready to smoke this weekend or early next week. I'll try dried chillies on one and fresh on the other and let you know how I go.

This is hot smoking (as was yours Nocky) so if I get the same results as Nocky I'll investigate trying to use dried chillies in a cold smoking process. I've got most of the equipment I need to do it, I think, so will try and find the time to in the next few weeks - might need a bit of MacGyver magic with a paperclip and a bit of chewy.

Stay tuned

Love to see the results.

BTW, would also love the recipe and details, never tried doing my own bacon before. For that matter some details on the cold smoker would be great as well.

Photos you know we all love photos

Will do F&F