# First Smoked Catfish (w/ Q-view)



## seboke (Jun 13, 2008)

Cowgirl inspired me yesterday with a nice stringer of catfish she posted.  Not having time to go catch my own (strapped to a dental chair for three hours today), coupled with no guarantee of bringing any home, the next best thing was pay someone else to catch em and clean em!  Being on sale, it cost me less than the gas would have to get me to my catfishin' pond and back!

Got these fillets for $2.99 a pound. 


Brined for 4 hours.  Brine was a mod to the salmon brine I did a week ago.  Could not find a "catfish" brine.

1 gal Water
1 cup Kosher Salt
1 cup Brown Sugar
8 crushed cloves Garlic
1 small onion, rough chopped
1/4 bell pepper, rough chopped
1 tablespoon Jalapeno hot sauce
1/4 cup teryaki sauce
1 teaspoon bay leaf flakes


Fillets in the brine


lightly seasoned each fillet differently.  One each of:
-Old Bay
-Caribbean Seafood Blend
-CBP
-Garlic Power
-Red Pepper Flakes
-Creole Seasoning
-CBP, garlic powder, salt


Seasoned fillets waiting for the fire to get just right


Burned down oak logs to coals, added a small amount of hickory chunks every 30 minutes for the flavor.  Maintained average temp around 220.  Smoked for 2.5 hours.


Juicy, flaky and delicious!!!  The bottoms (where the skin was) were a bit slimy, and the thinner parts were a bit salty.  Maybe cut the brine salt a bit next time.  Though it didn't stop me from eating a second one while I was posting this!  And I know what's for lunch tomorrow!


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## pineywoods (Jun 13, 2008)

Looks great


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## cowgirl (Jun 13, 2008)

Seboke, that looks so goood!!! I'm gonna give it a try with some of the catfish I brought home.
Thank you for posting this!


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## capt dan (Jun 13, 2008)

Dang brother, them fillets look mighty fine for sure. Like ya said, only thing better is catching them yerself!


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## monicotti (Jun 13, 2008)

They look yummi


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## ronp (Jun 13, 2008)

They really look great, gonna look for a sale on them. Getting the sale fliers out as I type. Nope, 4.99 a pound, oh well, I'll keep looking next week.
Thanks for the QVIEW.


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## richoso1 (Jun 13, 2008)

I've only had fried catfish, and I mean about 15 lbs. a year. I'm dying to smoke some, thanks to your Q View!


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## seboke (Jun 13, 2008)

Thanks Patty, with your little catfish store out back, and ya sure can't beat the price, figured you'd have done this often!


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## seboke (Jun 13, 2008)

This is what it's all about in my book!  Throw out some tasty Q-view of something not so common, and get some of the vets in here itchin to give it a try!  I think that's more of a compliment than the "looks tasty" comments!

I was joking about the store bought fillets being cheaper than the gas it would have cost to go catch my own.  Thinking about it more, I paid $13.01 for 4.3 pounds of fillets.  Where I do my cat fishin is about 20 miles away.  40 mile round trip, $4.00 for gas now, 15 MPG in my truck = 2-1/3 gallons = $10.67 just for the gas to the pond.  Now pay myself for the effort of skinning and filleting, then having fish skeletons rotting in my garbage in the garage till Sunday - and it's like 100* in there, I'll estimate $100 for that (cause I HATE cleaning catfish).  Then throw in buying the worms or livers or both for bait....  MUCH cheaper to fish in the seafood dept!  But really, I'd still prefer to have been able to catch my own!


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## crockadale (Jun 13, 2008)

Gerat job Ken, Who would of thought to do cat fish. Will be looking for em when I go to the grocerey tonight.


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## seboke (Jun 13, 2008)

Thanks croc.  I read thru every hit from my "catfish" search looking for methods.  My search produced a bunch of off-the-wall returns.  Finally figured out most of the returns were from posts being made by username "catfish".

Your custom stick burner - you come over here and get the one we talked about?


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## flyin'illini (Jun 13, 2008)

Nice thread.  Another item I now want to do.  
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	




Agree on catching them yourself but I like to keep it simple now.


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## jbchoice1 (Jun 13, 2008)

great looking cats...  mmmm.  need water to go down, fish to come home.


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## walking dude (Jun 13, 2008)

nice.............will be catfishing as SOON as the waters go down, and i know how i am going do em


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## walking dude (Jun 13, 2008)

i also BOOKMARKED THIS..............thankx dude.........tho i plan on taking the skin off then i do this............i can see leaving the skin on bass and salmon.......but not catfish


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## kajun (Jun 13, 2008)

mmmm looks delicious!


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## seboke (Jun 13, 2008)

Hope I didn't confuse - they were skinned fillets, just the side that had the skin - the side I had down for the smoke - had that brown film, turned out a bit slimy.  These fillets were bigger than the 12-14 inch channel cats I usually catch, have noticed over the years the bigger/thicker the fish/fillet, the bigger/thicker that brown layer is.  It did flake off pretty good, kind of like skin-on salmon fillets, but not quite as easy.


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## seboke (Jun 15, 2008)

Gotta love leftovers!!


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## waysideranch (Jun 16, 2008)

Yum............................


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## rw willy (Jun 18, 2008)

That looks great


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## daboys (Jun 19, 2008)

I gotta get down to the river now! That really looks good.


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## walking dude (Jun 19, 2008)

heck dude.....the saylorville doesn't go down much by the get together, you can walk maybe 20 feet and toss your line in


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## daboys (Jun 19, 2008)

Hey, there ya go. Freshly caught and smoked catfish for the get together.


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## walking dude (Jun 19, 2008)

S-I-L went catfishing today ( lill sob didn't take ME along) and caught some to give me, i hope to bring to the get together


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## walking dude (Jun 26, 2008)

seeboke............hey.......i just went back over this thread........and i noticed that you seasoned each fillet diff.

which one did you like the best outta the seven?


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## seboke (Jun 26, 2008)

I'd say the the red pepper, black pepper, and garlic, in that order.  The other ones seasonings had salt, and I think I used a little too much in the brine, making them even more salty.  They weren't TOO salty, but could have stood a little less.


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## blacklab (Jun 27, 2008)

A little late to the thread, but heck great looking meal or meals


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## talleymonster (Jul 4, 2008)

That looks awesome!  I've got some catfish in the freezer that I was thinking about grilling for tomorrow.  I've got some massive fillets from this bad boy:
















33 pound Flathead Catfish.


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## seboke (Jul 4, 2008)

Yeah Man, Nice Catch!!  Give it a whirl on the smoker!


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## sweethanky (Jul 4, 2008)

nice job dude... i dont eat fish but man that looks good


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## packplantpath (Jul 4, 2008)

Ok, so this is the first time I've ever seen this in a pic and it gives me a chance to ask this question.  Anybody else see that sparkly sheen on the meat in the above pic?  What is that?

I've seen it on cuts of pork, beef, and now fish.  Mostly, I've seen it on roast beef, but sometimes packaged ham has it too.  It's almost always a cured meat, so I've assumed it's a reaction to the cure, but I'd like confirmation.  Sorry for the off topic question.


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## seboke (Jul 6, 2008)

Dude, that's tartar sauce, though I've never seen tartar sauce on beef or pork 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





 .  Seriously now, not sure what sparkly sheen you're talking about, not from the fish sammy pic.  If I'm seeing what I think you're talking about, I think it is moisture reflecting the camera flash.


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## walking dude (Jul 6, 2008)

i have my fillets in the brine now

i think seboke, he is talking that rainbow type color, and you will get that with fish......


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## daboys (Jul 6, 2008)

Isn't that from the oil in the meat? I could be wrong.


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## walking dude (Jul 6, 2008)

mite be, but catfish is not a oily fish, much at all


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## seboke (Jul 6, 2008)

Went back and looked again, I see the rainbow effect on the flesh.  Showing qview to my mother, a long time country-cooking gal.  She don;t know why, but says it is common.  I have seen that same sheen on roast beef more than anything.  I was jus tryin to get a laugh with the tartar sauce comments!
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Lookin forward to your catfish smokery (is that a word?).  Water finally go down enough to wet a line up there?


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## walking dude (Jul 6, 2008)

yeah.............finally

i also see it in roastbeef......


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## packplantpath (Jul 7, 2008)

Ok, thought maybe I was crazy for a minute.

I knew I didn't like tartar sauce, but I thought I knew what it looked like
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





.

I guess it could be the sheen of oil, it does kinda look like the colors of a layer of oil on water.  Maybe.....


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## placebo (Jul 7, 2008)

Nice looking eats there! I will have to try that soon.

Here is an explanation on the rainbow color:

*"What causes the shiny rainbow appearance on some cured meats?
**A natural phenomenon in cured meat, and some fresh meat, is the occurrence of iridecence or a rainbow appearance on the cut lean surface. Technically, this is referred to as birefringence. It is caused by the reflectance of light off the muscle proteins. Muscles are arranged in strands that are bound together to form myofibrils. These in turn are bound together to form muscle fibers, which in turn form muscle bundels and finally the muscles. When the muscle is cut in a particular angle, exposing a cross section of myofilaments, the reflected light causes the rainbow effect."*


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## packplantpath (Jul 7, 2008)

Nice, I knew I could count on somebody to come up with an answer.

Thanks.  Points.....


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## seboke (Jul 7, 2008)

Impressive research Placebo!


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