Can meat and fish be smoked together

by sandy

Can meat and fish be smoked together in the same smoker at the same time?

Answer:-

The short answer is yes but there are some very important points to consider.

Care must be taken with fish (especially whole fish) to ensure smoke can penetrate the fish. Should the temperature of your smoker exceed 92°C or 200°F then this will become more difficult. The ideal smoking temp is 82°C or 180°F.

Meat is much more tolerant to temperature variation and can be cooked at higher temperatures with 110°C or 225°F being the popular norm..

Both meat and fish can of course be cooked at 82°C or 180°F but you have to be very careful about maintaining that low temperature.

One other point to raise is if you are hanging the fish in your smoker, hit a high temperature and it's likely that the body will drop just leaving the head hanging.

In summary, I prefer to smoke fish and meat separately unless I'm plank cooking.

If I'm putting fish filets on a plank to cook inderectly with other meats then I don't find this to be a problem. Clearly timing is an issue in that you wouldn't put the fish in until the final 30 minutes before serving but temperature-wise there's no problem.

See Also:-

Barbecue Tips
Barbecue Grill Comparisons
Outdoor Kitchen Barbecue Islands
Tabletop Gas Grill

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