Dried the fish off with paper towels, cut slits in the sides, brushed with peanut oil, Himalayan salt and some seafood rub.
Set up the Performer to smoke using the snake method. A couple of handfuls of lump fired up in the chimney and tossed on the beginning part of the fuse. Foil under the fish on the charcoal grate. looking to smoke around 250 degrees.
One hour in the spawn was ready. Incredible. Creamy. Smokey. Sort Of like a smoked poached egg yolk.
Giving the redfish a little more time-
Letting the tuna marinade in the soy/ginger/sesame/red pepper flake mixture for a couple of hours before smoking them between 175-225 for a couple of hours.
7:20AM Cleaned the mackerel by head and gutting them and then making cuts every 3/4 of an inch down each side of the fish so the marinade will penetrate.
Next patted them dry with paper towels and placed them in my go-to fish marinade-
soy/ginger/sesame seed/red pepper flakes.
I’ll let them sit in the marinade til 9:30 or so. Check back around 10 for the next update!
9:45 AM
Changed plans and opted for the Kettle as it was such a small cook. Set up the kettle for the snake method (arrange a fuse of coals around the perimeter so the coals act as a fuse with only so many coals going at once) looking for 225-250 degree grate temps.
Once it hit 200 I shut down the bottom vent to 3/4 closed and left the top vent wide open.
Placed the mackerel on offset of the coals.
Follow along this morning at www.northeastbbq.com
Thanks to skipper Brian Higgins aboard the F/V Toby Ann we’ve got some beautiful tuna steaks to smoke up today.
Last night I trimmed them up and put out my ingredients for the overnight marinade and added two more ingredients: Fresh Ginger which I’d grate into the bowl and finely chopped up yellow Cayenne Pepper.
The marinade consisted of-
A Bottle of Veri Veri Teriyaki Marinade and Sauce
A Turn In the Bowl of Chili Oil and Japanese Sesame Oil
A Very Generous Amount of Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (I like stuff spicy)
A Half a Tablespoon of Granulated Garlic
Tablespoon of Freshly Grated Ginger
I Finely Chopped Yellow Cayenne Pepper
A Cup Of Light Brown Sugar
Here’s one of teh tuna steaks before i put them to bed sealed in Ziploc bags overnight.
This morning virtually all of the liquid of the marinade got sucked up by the tuna and it turns the tuna almost candied with the soy and the brown sugar getting all sucked up inside the flesh.
5:15 AM Lay out the tuna on the Weber Smokey Mountain racks to dry.
6:45AM Set up the smoker using the snake method apple wood chunks and cherry wood chips dispersed along the fuse.
Lit 8 briquettes in the chimney and dumped them onto the left hand side of the charcoal fuse.
8:00AM Update: Tuna steaks are cranking along but pit temps aren’t climbing the way it was the last time I smoked tuna. Pit temp 165 at grate level one hour into the smoke. I opened the feeder door to let some air in and added some cherry chips to stoke the coals a bit.
9:00AM Update:
Tuna internal temp 150 degrees and they come off. I take the tuna steaks off and place them on the cool grates of the Weber kettle to dry.
9:45 Tuna dried and ready to package:
Northeast BBQ 