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Native
Smoke Houses As told by Elenore
McMullen to Gordon Norman |
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The kinds of fish that I smoke are
salmon and trout. Usually in the spring, in May when the first fish come,
which are trout and red salmon, I usually smoke red
salmon in strips. I smoke those, humpies are good. If you don’t strip them just leave them filleted in half.
King salmon will have to be stripped cause it’s fat
and takes longer to dry. Red salmon you also have to strip. You can smoke
trout, and you can smoke dog salmon. Dog salmon isn’t as tasty. There’s no
fat in it and it’s a dry, hard, smoked fish. Silver salmon is very good, but
during the silver salmon season it’s always so rainy and the flies are so
horrid you can’t do a very good job at it. I did this fall, kipper smoke, or
what ever you want to call it. I don’t know what to call it. Any way I took
filleted chucks of silver salmon, the whole halves and laid them on screen
wire and laid them in the smoke house for twelve hours. I removed the skin
and the bone and all been removed and then I canned those. I put a little
chunk of garlic and la little piece of onion at the bottom of the jar and
then some of the fish. I soaked it in brine first, before I did that and some
of it I didn’t and both tasted just as good. Those that I didn’t soak in
brine I added salt to them before O put them under 15 pounds pf pressure for
half an hour. It worked out really beautiful, real tasty and flavorful I did
that with king salmon too. I use salt, that’s all I use. I use 100% brine. In order
to make your brine I usually take warm water, and dissolve take warm water,
and dissolve enough rock salt for a 5 gallon container I use about 3 gallons
of water, hot water, a coffee can, and 2 coffee cans full of salt. I also use
a raw potato. I mix these up when my fish of ready and everything’s ready to
go. Dissolve as much of the salt as I can and then I place the potato in the
water and when the potato comes to the surface of the water then I feel the
that I got 100% brine. Some people use a spike. I don’t use a spike in it. I
just use a potato. I soak the fish in the brine for only 30 minutes.
Sometimes 20 minutes, depends on the thickness of the fish. If it’s humpies
and thin sliced red salmon, I soak them for 20 minutes. No longer. Then it’s
not fit to eat. It’s so salty. The fish should have kind of bluish color to
it, if you hold it at different angles in the light. I always feel that’s
real sage. Lots of people don’t do that and then they end up with pieces of
strips hanging in their smoke house and about four and five inches of it are
white, nothing but salt. All the salt drains down to the bottom. I rinse it
real good. I hang it in the smoke house 12 to 16 hours and let just hang
there and dry. I let as much air in to circulate as much as possible. You
have to watch out for flies. Then I smoke it for 4 days, sometimes 5, but no longer
than that. I use cottonwood. I don’t use any thing else, only cottonwood that
I picked up from the beach. Otherwise you will have bitter tasting fish, if
you use alders. Alders are good but you have to use small amounts of it all
day long. I have the smoke house going day and night for five days, four days
depends on how much smoke there is on the fish, it’s not a hot fire. Smoke
just enough to get a good smoke going 24 hours a day. Screen would be just fine. Our smoke house is made of the
old roof of the school house. We don’t have screen, only in my drying part.
It is really not necessary to have screen, you know, it depends on what time
of the year your going to be smoking fish. If you keep a good steady smoke
then you won’t need that screen there. After the fish heads smoke for 4 or 5
days, I usually put them in the dry part where there is screen and as
fly-free as possible and let it hang there for a couple of days before I put
it away. But if a person could afford it he can buy screen. I like to keep
mine about as closed in as possible. Lots of people, my mother used to have a
smoke house made of burlap. She’d have about 4 foot walls, plywood walls or
boards and then the balance of it was burlap. Then later on she got screen
wire. I felt like you know the purpose
of the smokehouse there was to smoke the fish and you want to retain or keep
in as much of the smoke around the fish and not just let it blow out of the
building. Maybe if you were drying fish and wanted a little smoked flavor
that would be a nice way of doing it. The screen is to keep flies out. Flies
destroy fish. You can fish all day long and come home and fillet fish for 3
hours of the night and then lose it all ‘cause I didn’t have screen in my
drying shack and it’s just too much hard work and fish war hard to get. You
can use alder wood, small amounts of it. They are ready to eat the second
day. They’ll be ready to eat but they need cooking or to be baked in the
oven. On the fourth day the tips of them are ready to eat. It depends on what
kind of fish they are. Humpies, four days and they’re ready to eat. Reds
maybe five or ten day’s let’em hang depends again
on the thickness. Then king salmon, probably the same length of time from
five to ten days. It depends on your taste again how you like it soft smoke
or a hard smoke or a medium smoke. Take you pocket knife and just nick it. I
store my smoked fish in the freezer. I don’t put it n unwrapped. I don’t put
it in unwrapped. Once in a wile I put them in jars. If you store it in a box
and put it in a cool place I find I lose them. They get moldy or else a
varmint will get into them like a little chipper or something. But that’s the
best way to store them. I chop them up into chunks and the chunks size I’m
going to serve them in the plastic. They keep very well. Red salmon and king salmon have lots
of fat in them and they keep really good. By spring if you haven’t used them
all up they lose all their fat. I usually go across the bay for wood. Even on
this side across the point I usually spend a whole day looking for wood. I
carry an ax with me to chop into the wood to make sure it’s the right kind if
wood. Lots of times cedar looks just like cottonwood if it’s been in the
water long enough. Then you have to shop into it and many, many times some of
our long logs have been used for pilings and they have tar on them, and you
definitely don’t want that. I don’t put oil in my fish. Lots of people put
some in, about two tablespoons. I don’t use oil ‘cause
the fish that I use make their own oil. With kippered fish I don’t add any
water or anything to it, it makes its own juice, and after it’s been smoked
10 to 12 hours I just chop it up into chunks and put it in the jars and pack
it tight. I add a little piece of garlic and a little piece of onion in the
bottom just to flavor it and I do not soak it in brine. I put a ‘tablespoon
of slat in it. It depends again on the size of the jars. The quart jar I’m
talking about I put in a tablespoon of salt and I tossed them in there and
they made their own juices, about a cup of juice.
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Copyright 1981, Volume1 |
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