# Smoked Halibut & Sturgeon



## cmayna (Mar 21, 2015)

Since I do tons of Salmon, I have very little experience with both Sturgeon and Halibut.  Also I find that that there isn't too many Sturgeon and Halibut recipes here on SMF, so I had to come up with something and massage it to my likings.

Here's some Sturgeon our fishing buddy caught a couple weeks ago brining in a wet solution for 24 hours.







Some AK Halibut we caught last year in a lemon pepper dry brine for 3 hours.






2 racks of Halibut and 1 rack of Sturgeon on the table drying






Halibut drying






Sturgeon drying






Off to the two Big Chief smokers they go






Check out how both Chiefs are in sync with each other






Here's a couple pics of the Chiefs with AMNPS incorporated.












3+ hours later on the table cooling down






Yumm






Halibut






Sturgeon






All in all both turned out wonderfully.  Thanks to dirtsailor2003 for his input while I was  mentally bringing this together.  Tomorrow we'll have the official tasting party, but tonight the Mrs and I cheated and tried both after they cooled down and oh by the way, she has apparently extended our marriage contract another 100 years after tasting today's creations.

I give  a big thanks to TG Pythons for his Sturgeon Candy recipe and input. Followed his recipe with very little change.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/157743/smoked-sturgeon

Also kudo's to Alaskan Bear for his smoked Halibut recipe post:  I sweetened up this recipe to a typical 4/1 ratio of sugar/salt ( same as all my Salmon recipes) but kept the rest of the ingredients as is. http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/109393/smoked-lemon-alaskan-halibut

Thanks gents.

For both recipes I did the same temps and smoking times which was

1ft hour at 130*
2nd hour at 150*
3rd hour at 160+ until an IT of 135-140 was met

Alder pellets in both.  Yes I could have smoked all the fish in just one Chief but didn't want the upper rack dripping down onto the lower rack since different fish was being smoke,  but when I opened up the smokers at the end, I notice both drip pans were very dry.  Shoulda, Coulda?   Nope!   Would have had a very jealous Chief if I didn't use both.

Wish I had more Sturgeon to smoke but with all the Halibut we still have, I'll be kept pretty busy until the Salmon season is well underway.














image.jpg



__ cmayna
__ Mar 22, 2015






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## gary s (Mar 21, 2015)

Man that looks great !!!    
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Gary


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## cmayna (Mar 21, 2015)

Thanks Gary.  I added links to the original recipes I used with some slight modifications.


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## ajbert (Mar 21, 2015)

Both look fantastic and I can only wish I could taste them from here!

Sturgeon is one of the very few fish I've gone after and never got.  I did have the pleasure of catching a few halibut off the stern gate when I was up in Alaska a few years back, though.


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## dirtsailor2003 (Mar 21, 2015)

Looking good Craig! Take some of that halibut and make some fish cakes! So good! 

POINTS!


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## cmayna (Mar 22, 2015)

Case,

That's a great idea.  Just googled Halibut cakes and found a whole bunch of recipes including  Crab and Halibut cakes recipe from the Deschutes Brewery?  El  Yummo! 

http://www.deschutesbrewery.com/recipe/northwest-crab-and-halibut-cakes

Think I'll do some more Halibut this coming weekend so I can have plenty available for both cakes as well as finger food for our first day of the 2015 Salmon season.  Need to come up with a good dipping sauce.

Most importantly, thanks for your help in my smoke out of yesterday.


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## dirtsailor2003 (Mar 22, 2015)

Halibut and Dungeness crab cakes, yumm! Deschutes Breweries food has gone down hill since they expanded a few years back. They have good ideas just fail at the execution now. Too bad. U.S. locals pretty much avoid the biggest breweries anymore. The waits are too long and the atmosphere is lousy. 

I'm off to the beach next weekend to see if I can catch some Ling Cod! Gonna be fun!


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## tg pythons (Mar 22, 2015)

Looks awesome Craig!  The sturgeon candy recipe was found on this site, so SMF gets the praise here!


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## cmayna (Mar 22, 2015)

Today we had our tasting party and our fishing buddy who's so anal about smoked fish went bonkers over both fish.  I personally love the Sturgeon just a tad more than the Halibut, but I wouldn't kick the Halibut out of bed... 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





   Now that we ate so much fish today, I will need to smoke a whole bunch of Halibut to get ready for our upcoming Salmon fishing trip.


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