Smokey Good…
Just as Texas has brisket and Tennessee has barbecue (and here we’re talking pulled pork because there is no other kind of barbecue), we in the Northwest have smoked fish—whether it is salmon, steelhead, kokanee, trout or whitefish.
I grew up eating smoked salmon, as have most in fishing families in the Pacific Northwest. That’s why the smoking of salmon is such an art form—we know smoked fish and have strong opinions on how it should be done. Everything from the wood to the brine to the smoker is part of the equation and final product.
From the time my father built his first smoker, a refrigerator that had a metal liner instead of the plastic now used, I’ve watched smokers evolve. I’ve used a number of different types myself, from the lightweight metal units that have one temperature to more involved propane smokers that allowed you to select the temperature range you want.
The newest iteration is the Bradley smoker, one that is about as automatic as you can get. This electric smoker—there are five models—runs on electricity and automatically feeds disks of compressed wood into the smoke generator at the proper rate to get continuous smoke.
It also allows the user to moderate the temperature inside the smoker.
However, unlike a couple of smokers I’ve used in the past, this brand’s temperature controls actually work. The range is such that you can run hot to smoke things like pork butt (if you have a hankering for genuine Tennessee ‘que), turkey for Thanksgiving, or you can run it cold for some mozzarella sticks or that chinook you put in the fish box a couple of days ago.
That kind of utility means that the smoker will get a lot of use because you can do more than just smoke fish.
These smokers are a bit more complex than the aluminum boxes sold seemingly everywhere. They come in two basic parts—the insulated box in which you place the fish and the smoke generator.
This latter device has a vertical tube into which you place the wood, the proprietary “bisquettes,” and the feeding system that takes those same bisquettes and moves them automatically onto the heated tray that heats the wood to smoking and drops it into the water tray where the moist smoke is then produced.
As one bisquette is used, another pops into its place. Fill the feeding tube with bisquettes, and you get nine hours of uninterrupted smoke. So once you have the process dialed in and know exactly how you want the smoker to run, you can load whatever into the unit, set the controls to your choice, and forget it for nine hours.
Like all smokers, there are caveats: the outside temperature will affect the temperature inside the box. Given that the box is insulated (unlike so many other smokers), the outside temperature won’t have such a dramatic effect as it might otherwise.
Currently, there are five smokers in the Bradley line. The test model is the Original, and it’s a gem.
There also is a sleeper: it’s a small, countertop, two-rack smoker that is handy for those who smoke things other than double limits of salmon. It’s a great size for those who only want to smoke enough fish for a party or a weekend trip.
Bradley has a range of accessories for both smokers and barbecues: brines, flavorings, syrups, a fishing plug similar to a J-Plug, racks for making jerky and 12 flavors of bisquettes. There also is an adapter for creating cold smoke.
For more information, go to: www.bradleysmoker.com.