Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeh, but Buson's over here in mild old Perth (I love this global warming thing, were getting rain further and further into Spring, even early Summer)... where most peeps water temps are still around 20C

Pulled the first of my Trout yesterday afternoon smallest was 340g and the biggest was 565g but there are much bigger ones to come !!!

Temps could be a bit of a problem though, it hit 41c at my place yesterday

edit.

Yep have done this in my Weber. Make a pouch of tin foil about 200mm X 200mm by crimping over three sides of a folded foil sheet. Put the wood chips in the pouch and fold over the last edge then poke a few holes in one side (top) of the poach. Put it in the barby and fire it up, then when it starts to smoke put the fish in on a rack with some foil under the rack (like you would do a roast). You may need to add more wood chips depending on size of fish etc.

I like this smoker design, easy and cold smoked is alot nicer i think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE7FJjmCZFY

Cheers guys!...

So Mantis, is your webber method with, or without heat beads?...

ie: Do I sit the pouch of woodchips near some heat beads and the beads cook the fish and the smoke flavours it?... or do I not have beads and just light up the woodchips and get them smouldering?

I've youtubed smoking this morning and some methods use just the smoke from the woodchips to basically cure the fish, others use a heat source as well as the smoke.

I want to cook the trout whole and head on so they don't dry out, but I'm thinking I'd need a heat source to do that properly... or a very long smoking time.

It takes only around 14mins to smoke a trout of ~450g in my little BCF 'Nipper Kipper Smoke Oven'. All it takes is two capfuls of sawdust and a small volume of methylated spirits in a supplied burner. The burner supplies the heat to the tray (bottom of smoke oven) on which the sawdust is sprinkled, over which the fish lays on a wire tray. The sawdust produces lots of smoke but no flames in the enclosed oven.
It is simple, easy and cheap yet very effective.

Cheers PLJ.

Here's one for Gav, Rupe, or anyone that want's a stab.

This fella went into the system in May with the rest of my Trout, which are all now between about 450-700gm, but he never grew. This morning he was still swimming around, then this arvo he was brown bread, his fins and gills were all healthy looking. I saw him feeding on occasions, so he was eating, but he always looked thin... parasite maybe?

natural selection mate!

Mine were done in a gas fired Weber. The pouch is over the heat on the grill and the trout is on a separate grill sitting on silver foil so the trout only gets radiant heat, but its heaps to hot smoke/cook it

So my turn, so the harvest began tonight with nine coming out. Three smaller ones kept for fresh eating and the larger six into brine for a few hours and then in the smoker tomorrow
Big fella 570g and smallest 330g . When cleaning them a couple had small roe sacks starting that I havent seen before

Noice...

Some fantastic looking trout there guys. Oh, and one not so great looking one.

My fish have got a lot of catching up to do by the looks of it.

Havent been feeding them much because of having big silvers and cats in the same system didnt want an ammonia spike, so far so good. I threw a few back in that need to grow some more

Nice fish mantis.


That little one must have been a runt, damage?

I think it's a Whiting... masquerading as a trout...