How do they smoke mackerel?

Answer 1

For a product of good eating quality, mackerel with a fat content of at least 10 per cent should be used. For smoked whole fish, the mackerel are gutted, or headed and gutted, as required, the gut cavity cleaned and the black bellywall lining removed. For hot smoked fillets, single fillets with skin left on are cut from the whole fish. The rate of uptake of salt during brining depends principally on the size of the fish; large fish take longer to brine than small ones. Thus to achieve a reproducible uptake of salt all the fish in a batch should be of about the same weight. Mackerel fillets take a much shorter time to brine; as a guide, an average fillet takes about 3 minutes in 80° brine. Brined whole fish can be tied by the tails in pairs and hung over tenter rods for smoking, or hung individually by the tails in keyhole slots cut in metal frames. Mackerel with heads on can be speated through the eyes. Fillets are laid on trays made of nylon coated or stainless steel wire mesh. Full tenters, speats or trays are loaded on trolleys which when fully loaded can be left to drain for 1-2 hours or wheeled directly into the kiln without draining. In kilns with more than one trolley, the first loaded trolley should be placed at the air outlet end, and the last loaded trolley at the air inlet end.