hi colin, i have a smoker.  one of those metal box type that you heat with a bowl of metho.  cost around $50 i think, but that was a year ago.

they work well.  takes only a few mins to heat up and start smoking.  a box full of fish can be done in about 30mins all up.

i use it for herring most of the time. i gut them but keep the scales on as the skin peels off nicely once smoked with the scales on.  haven't tried smoking fillets, as i can see it just falling apart into the sawdust.

once you get the hang of controling the amount and type of sawdust you put in, you can adjust the flavour.

the key is not to over smoke the fish, as it can get bitter and they turn brown.  under cooked is always the best with any fish cooking i guess. 

well worth the money, easy, quick to use and wash it down with the hose after. 

tackle shops sell a variety of sawdust to taste, so you wont get bored.

That's great info. I will definately go out and get one now.

Tried smoking fish once, but it was a pain getting a ciggy paper round the fish .......

Before I moved I had a old teak cupboard and smoked fish and meat in it.  Good flavor, but it's a permenant setup, that is not easy to put away.  Advantage is that you could do heaps in one go.

1985 Boston Whaler Outrage 18 Johnson 140hp 4stroke

have got a rollie machine Alfred. I mate of mine many years ago went the whole hog and built a smoking room. He used to catch a lot of tailor and smoke them up. Tasted great.

Teh old man used to smoke herring fillets yrs ago in his home made smoker.

Bloody bewdieful they were, served on steam rice and sweet-n-sour sauce

Now I am definately getting one.

oh i forgot to add,...

make sure that the metal bowl (one you put the metho in to burn) has a little gap between itself and the ground.  i was wondering why the metho was burning so quick, and realised that the bowl was boiling when touching the ground.  once i put it on a old metal grill and made a gap between it and the floor, the metho lasted for ages.

for best results choose a spot where there is no wind, so the metho burns slow and steady. 

Thanks for the tips.

my old man   knocked up a smoker years ago   its seen meny changes over the years  at the moment it has three trays and can smoke around 20 filets i like to use jahra and grape vine  (yummmmmmmm)

Good, I have plenty of that.

1 x Kookaburra smoker

1x 45+ cm mangrove jack fillets

dilute brown sugar in to water so it is still sticky and grainy not dissolved(bundaberg sugar of coarse)

rub into fillets and allow to absorb for about 1 hr

slice fillets in to bite size pieces(not to big, alittle bigger than a chicken nugget)

add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of jarah sawdust

cook and enjoy with a stubbie of Boags St Goerge (as reqiured)

fish hard work less

I guess it will work with a range of different fish.

yeh colin over east i used to do the same thing with rainbow trout, wild river catches being the better over the impoundment catches the river fish are a bit more lean.

just less sugar and she oak was another good alternative  

fish hard work less

Appreciate the tips.

You can knock up a good smoker with an old webber , thats what I done , and I use whitegum for wood as the harder the wood is the more smoke and longer it works for , I just soak a block of white gum ( about 6 inch square) in a bucket of water for about an hour and just sit it on top of some heat beads ( about 12 to 15 bricks are enough so a 4 kg bag can do 5 sessions), it can process a lot of fish that way .

 EX Recfishwest member 291

EX Hotbite member . ( with a LIFE ban )

NEW Oatsfishwest member 291 .

I wish I had read this earlier. I saw an old webber tossed out in the council clean up the other day.

Any old box or drum will work my uncle who owns a property in Chittering has 2, one hot somoker and a cold smoker made out of 200l drums .

IF anyone is wondering about hot and cold smoking , Hot smoking is where you have the heat and smoke in the same container and sort of cook the food as well as smoking it good for eating straight away and is much quicker , cold smoking is where the heat is kept away and only the smoke ( and a little bit of heat) preserves and dries it out but takes a lot longer ( just think bacon etc ) the good bacon and hams are cold smoked over a long period of time .

The hot smoker is just a series of racks inside the drum and the heatbeads and wood/ shavings are at the bottom and the heat / smoke cooks the food , the other one is on a stand and the heatbeads and wood/ shavings are in a seperate box under the drum and the smoke (and a little heat) goes up a chimney to the drum on the stand so that just the smoke mainly cooks and cures the fish / ham/ bacon/ jerky / whatever.

CHEERS , MAV.

We might be smoking a lot more of the less palatable fish when these draconian rules come in .

NEW Oatsfishwest member 291 .

Thanks for the info.

I'm not just a pretty face you know

NEW Oatsfishwest member 291 .

I have been intrigued by the lifetime ban from Hotbite.

Me and someone dissagreed , I wasn't the golden child so off I went.

Was the first to get a life ban , think I'm the only one so far too , Wally might be catching me tho .

NEW Oatsfishwest member 291 .

I'm on the lifetime ban list Mav, must have been close to beating you too...  Sad bunch of fellas apart from that Salmo bloke, reading that magazine is like un-educating yourself.

smoked a trout and some ham/bacon down harvey last weekend.

Fish was on the smoker basically straight after catching it, and it turned out great.

More "talk" about other stuff than fishin' over there anyway , maybe they will put a shooting section in and get a story thats not 10 years old from some contributors, bet some are guests on here everyday .

Yeah still don't know about that Salmo guy tho 

NEW Oatsfishwest member 291 .

dhuie wings mmm