# Time Or Internal Temperature ?



## fsa46 (Mar 27, 2020)

Smoking some trout and planning on maintaining a temp around 165*.

 My questions is,  should I go by an internal temperature ( 145* ) or a certain time to finish ?


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## Kevin DeShazo (Mar 27, 2020)

Internal temp is your best bet. All food cooks differently even if they are the same thing.


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## thirdeye (Mar 27, 2020)

Internal temp is the best way to prevent drying out the fillets.  Since you mentioned a pit temp of 165° I'm assuming you will be curing then smoking?  These fillets were smoked until 145° internal. Some people like them a little drier, so 150° would work for that.







This fillet was also cured and smoked to 145° to give you an idea of what the internal looks like.


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## smokerjim (Mar 27, 2020)

i'm with Kevin and thirdeye, go by internal temp,


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## kruizer (Mar 27, 2020)

What they all said.


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## fsa46 (Mar 27, 2020)

thirdeye said:


> Internal temp is the best way to prevent drying out the fillets.  Since you mentioned a pit temp of 165° I'm assuming you will be curing then smoking?  These fillets were smoked until 145° internal. Some people like them a little drier, so 150° would work for that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Looks awesome. Do you recall how long it took to reach the 145* ?


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## thirdeye (Mar 28, 2020)

fsa46 said:


> Looks awesome. Do you recall how long it took to reach the 145* ?


I use a Big Chief box smoker, so at best I can get 180° smoker temp.  This might take 2 hours for the fillets to reach 145°.  In cooler weather, or if I'm smoking thicker fillets, at the 2.5 hour mark if the fillets are not nearing 145° I move them to a 180° to 200° oven to get them done.  Much higher on the oven temp and you risk forcing too much of the albumen out of the fillet.  I generally see a pocket here and there, but I just try to keep it to a minimum.


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