FeatherSticks · Cooking
Smoking Fish & Meat at Camp: Hot Smoking over a Campfire
A pot, a handful of beech chips and embers: smoked trout at camp.
Quick facts
- Time
- 2–5 h incl. salting and drying
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Best for
- Trout, char, mackerel, chicken, pork
- You need
- Lidded pot, rack, chips, thermometer
What you need
- Large lidded steel pot, cast-iron pot or plain steel box
- Small rack or grate that fits inside
- Dry beech, alder or fruit-wood chips
- Probe thermometer and a dial or oven thermometer
- Salt and a lidded tub for brine
- Cool box with ice packs
- Heat-resistant gloves and long tongs
- Foil, water container and a small shovel
Step by step
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1 Salt the fish
Brine gutted fish in cold salt water (typically 50–100 g per litre) for 1–4 hours in the cool box, or dry-salt it.
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2 Rinse and dry the skin
Rinse briefly, pat dry and air-dry in the shade for 30–60 minutes until the skin feels matt and tacky.
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3 Build the smoker
Put wood chips in a lidded steel pot, add a foil drip tray and a rack, and set it stable on dry stones over embers.
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4 Embers and smoking wood
Burn hardwood down to embers. Use dry beech, alder or fruit-wood chips, never resinous, painted or unknown wood.
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5 Smoke hot
Close the lid and keep the inside at roughly 80–120 °C with thin, bluish smoke. Typical trout: 45–90 minutes.
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6 Probe and eat soon
Probe the thickest part: fish 63 °C, poultry 74 °C. Eat it the same day or chill it to 4 °C or below within 2 hours.
Common mistakes
- Trying to cold-smoke at camp instead of hot smoking to a safe core temperature.
- Brining fish on a warm table instead of in the cool box.
- Smoking with pine, spruce, pallets or painted and treated wood.
- Piling in chips until the smoke turns thick and white.
- Relying on the clock instead of a probe thermometer.
- Using a galvanised, painted or plastic-sealed box as a smoker.
- Keeping smoked fish for days as if it were preserved.