Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

on my Weber you can fold sides up to put in more bricks or smoking material, I fold them over and put another tray on top, only light one side about 15 bricks, put aluminum foil between heat and cooking tray as per picture to stop direct cooking, I found some wood pellets made by BBQ Delights, instructions for this step also on pack, but make a foil pouch by ripping of about 12" of foil, fold in half and then fold sides in to seal and make about a six inch pocket, put in a third of a cup of pellets in pocket and fold over the top to seal, put a small hole in top centre of pouch (I used a medium screw driver but a hole of about 6mm or 1/4" will be fine, place pouch on heat beads hole to top and wait til smoke comes out of hole and put on lid, (Only light 1 side with around 15 charcoal bricks) smoke will last about 25 minutes, method 2 is to set up the same but soak some saw dust in water (not dripping wet) and place on heat beads, problem here is smoke will only last 10 minutes or so, you need to put more on half way through cooking, ChilliDude tells me placing saw dust in the same pouch as above and using a smaller hole in foil creates same result, I have found Jarrah to be a bit heavy in flavour, CD also suggests this is due to resin content, my mate the GWH has a saw mill so I have tried a few different timbers;
Jarrah (not recommended)
Sheoak
White Gum
Marri
Salmon Gum
others bought in Packets which cost about $14 but you get around 8-10 smoking's out of a packet;
Mesquite
Hickory
The above 2 + sheoak have given the best results, The king of smoking food, Chillidude, will no doubt have some tips and secrets

Will do Nocky - but it'll have to be Monday - flat out at the moment !

Nice one.... Yeah, I had the same experience down south smoking salmon, don't use jarrah sawdust... I think the main one we ended up using was sheoak, plus a few mixes of different timbers as my brother is a wood turner down there and had mounds of sawdust everywhere..

We did some smoking here at the shop a while back with a couple of small smokers, I'll see if I can find the pictures, the trout were beautiful.....

Heh - I'm going to take that right out of context: You're smoking weed with midgets?

Now read what EB said again. Just need to amend it to ".. the trout were beautiful maaan....".

PS. My sister has this "great" idea of growing lots of weed in the AP system and then using the weed to smoke the trout. Selling it at the markets would be interesting. Dad then chimed in and said he'd get people to pay to "see" the smoking rooms. Revenue left right and center.

Then they would come back for more of that lovely fish coz they have the munchies.....

You may even be able to say it's medicinal and get the government to subsidise the cost to people "seeing" the room

Best tip - make friends with an orchard owner and get some wood of them when they trim their trees. Fruit tree wood is a beautiful, subtle flavour that is the perfect match with fish,
- apple
- pear
- cherry

They're magnificent.

One of this years big experiments will be try the wood from my lemon tree that needs to be brought back under control. Anyone out there tried citrus wood before ?

Next tip - make sure your smoke is moving over the food - if the smoke just sits there, you will end up with a bitter taste, no matter what wood you use.

I haven't tried it myself but I had a visitor from Ghana Africa once that took a bunch of off cuts he reckoned it was the secret to his famous smoked fish.

Thanks Novaris - bodes well then (fingers crossed).

Hi all
Creative1 and i had a nice side of cold smoked trout this after noon with a glass of Chardonay could have been 2 glasses
this trout was cold smoked with Karri bark, I collect it from the base of the trees,
There was a little white wine in the brine.
Creative1 took the other side home pre dinner also to square up with the cook I know cold smoking takes time however it is worth the trouble.
I have a large bag of lemon scented gum bark from Creative1 that should be very good
Cheers Eagle

Very nice it was too
Cold smoking is a lot different that hot smoke...
As one would imagine

I do not know much about smokers, I had a small aluminum one years ok - but it sucked - it was really just a grill with a bowl of water that you put the chips in. It seemed to steam things more then anything else. I make beef jerky all the time, but just use liquid smoke for the smoke flavor and dry it with a box fan in the kitchen. I found a DIY smoker a year or so ago that I've thought about building:

http://www.wedlinydomowe.com/smokehouse ... -round.htm

Not only does it look cool, but seems to be a cold smoke that I would want for sausages and jerky (and soon fish). Any insite appreciated.

give away the water and just go for smoke..
the water adds steam ...not what you want.
This dillutes the flavour not enhances.
We use jarrah but others say not use it.
BTW this is C1

Serious, it doesn't look anything like you
I tried Jarrah and it was heavy as, sheoak was great, will be trying some salmon gum over the weekend

Nup, the water is there to regulate temperature, by acting as a thermal mass - the wood chips shouldn't go in it. Also, your smoker should not be reaching temperatures high enough to produce any significant amounts of steam.