The fishing is picking up here on the Yukon,..they are having the first comercial chum opener tonight in Y-1
lots of fish at the moment..no directed king fishery at all though...thats kind of a bummmer....
food for thought....

Those potatoes look awful !

LMAO!!!!

I though the influx of terr- I mean tourists (citiots, fern feelers, I phoneys) is bad in northern Mn. Your situation sounds worse. Maybe the skeeters will drive 'em nuts.

First load of fish going into the smoke house..(cold smoked)

You smoke with alder?

Cottonwood and some Alder mixed in..smoke for about two weeks.

A cold smoking thread would be cool, had some cold smoked salmon and caribou in Aniak, made by the owner of the pizza shop, it was excellent.

I imagine the bark is off of the wood used for smoking?

I have only hot smoked(kippered) fish and game.

Its not to hard once you get them cut right..and keep a cool smoke on them no heat..I use a small Yukon military stove so it dont get a big fire and cook the fish..it will all fall if that happens..
smoke for two weeks and more or less dry it...then its packed tight into 5 gl buckets and will keep that way with no freezing for a year or two.. good grub for hunting and trapping later in the winter.

Jeff,
They look great. Do you use a brine to cure before smoking? I always wondered how they are prepped for traditional use.

Thanks Greg..the weather is nice so they should dry fast (I hope)..there is no brine or salt used..pretty bland..but salt is sprinkled on before eating...most do a salt brine on the strips.
I should add these are Chums...

they don't get moldy or go bad in the plastic buckets?

Jeff,
Did the seals bite the meat off that fish in the net and only leave you the head to eat??

the smoke is not to impart flavor, rather to keep the bugs off the fish while it dries right?

The fish wont mold if put away when they are dry..and packed good in the bucket..around here a woman will put a baby on her back and a layer of cardboard on the fish in the bucket and step it down with there weight to pack it..you can get 25 per bucket if packed good..a layer of seal oil will also keep it from molding,they call that Poke fish..its pretty good.

and yes the Seals left me the best part...

the smoke does keep the flys away and also preserves the fish.

Jeff, we are in the process of doing the same thing right now. We have 4, 8 foot racks of strips hanging.

How long do you dry them outside before you put them in the smoke?

Keep them out of the sun and give them a few days to seal up if the weather is decent,keep a tarp over them..if its rainy I will put mine right into the smoke house and start smoking..the King strips are oily and take at least two weeks,and will drip oil much longer sometimes,especialy our kings...and we only use the backs not the bellies they have too much oil..cut at the line that goes down the back..everything below the line is for salt fish,above is the strips..not cut too thick they..will dry faster.

warning if you let it get too hot and they cook you will come back and they will all be laying on the floor..

I am still trying to duplicate the strip recipe I saw when I was at a fish camp outside St. Mary's. They had a tote of water that they added salt to until either a skinned potato or an egg (could have been raw or hard boiled) floated to the top. They would then dunk strips hanging from a pole into the brine for a set amount of time (seemed short) and then hang to dry and then into the smoke house. They were the best strips I have ever had, but being as I wasn't paying much attention, I don't know what they floated in their to determine the salinity, nor how long they soaked them before hanging. Man I wish I would have taken notes back then.

-TJ

I do the same 100% brine >20 seconds. I learned how from friends in Pilot.

MP. What do you use to determine the salinity? You just soaked them for 20 seconds or so? Seems like they did them a little longer. Was like 5 minutes or so, but like I said, I wasn't paying attention.

-TJ

Some do it longer i.e. 5 min. The potato thing is, 100% brine if potato floats. I have mixed salt until it would not disolve anymore and went with it and it has worked well. I hang the strips until the oil starts to sweat and then put them in the smoke house and smoke with alder.

All the years I lived in SE we used fancy time consuming brines. Nowadays an ulu, salt and open air racks are the only way to go for me.

I always wished we could use open air racks for a day or so over here but there just isn't enough wind to keep the flies away. As soon as the fish is cut you need to have it in the smoke. I always used cottonwood on fish and birch on meat. Never used any brine.