Opening a thread to share smoking recipes for local species from Perth. Feel free to add your 2c worth - I wanna gain some more knowledge and share mine with others.

I have been smoking Herring a few times a year for a while now and I smoked some last week Here's my recipe / method:

I like to brine my fish before drying them out in the fridge. I usually brine them for at least 4 hours, but I prefer to soak them overnight. 

Brine recipe: 

2L water

1/3 cup salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 heaped tbsp pickling spice

1-2 tsp ground white pepper

2 tsp chilli powder / flakes

2 tsp minced garlic

2-3 bay leaves

1 shot glass Washyoursister sauce

1 shot glass Soy sauce 

Heat well on a low flame to dissolve all the ingredients and bring out the flavours from the bay leaves. Ones it's almost boiled, kill the heat and let cool down - I usually transfer into a container and put in the freezer if I'm in a rush. 

Once the brine is cool - I take my Herring which are whole, gutted, scaled and gilled, and lay them in a airtight Tupperware / Sistema style container large enough for 4-6 fish to sit without bending them and add the brine solution. Into the fridge 4 hours minimum, 12-18 hours seems to work better IMO. 

Once brined, I remove them and dry them with paper towel thoroughly  and use a toothpick to hold the cavity open by splaying the fish open at the wings. I leave them uncovered in the fridge upright for a couple of hours until they are tacky to touch on the outside. 

I get a pair of roasting pans and an oven rack ready on top of my little gas cooker or BBQ hotplate. I take 1-2 cups of smoking chips - Cherry and Alder is my.new favourite - and soak in a 3:1 mix of water and vinegar for a few minutes and drain them off. I scatter them evenly in one of the roasting pans and then place the oven rack on top. A very light brush of olive oil on the rack stops the fish sticking too much. I place the fish on the rack and usually have them upright again. Gas on, a low-medium flame lit and ~ 15-20 minutes and then flame off and wait 5-10 minutes for the smoking to stop. I definitely prefer to fridge them and consume when cool as I like the texture and taste more that way, but you can have them straight off the rack if you like. 

And there you go - my way to smoke local caught Herring. This also works great for Tailor, Snook and Mullet - I tried a Bream and a Tarwhine once but I didn't like them this way. 

Cheers, and hope to read some of your recipes here. 

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