Text and photos by Kent Priestley

• Introduction
• 10,000 pounds of rainbows per week
• The caviar
• How to get Sunburst trout
• Download the full article as a

10,000 pounds of rainbows per week

The company raises exclusively rainbow trout, and processes nearly 10,000 pounds of fish each week through every season. Treated to a high protein, high fat diet, the fish take about four years to reach their average harvest weight of three pounds. The feed includes a natural carotene that imparts a pink tinge to their flesh, a selling point for customers more familiar with store-bought salmon.
Once netted, the trout – never more than 600 at a time – rest in an ice slurry that quick-chills them and reduces trauma during the dressing process. The fish are cleaned and then passed through a motorized, Swiss-built filleting machine. Fillets are then hand trimmed, and, according to customer wishes, the tiny pin bones may be removed using a specially designed tool.

Smoked trout is one of the company’s most in-demand products. In one corner of the processing room, Wes, one of Eason’s two sons, tends the hot smoker. The firebox burns a blend of hickory wood and grapevines, and the fillets are slow-smoked at 145 degrees. They emerge the color of mahogany and laced with a complex, delicate flavor, courtesy of the wood smoke and a blend of spices.

Sunburst also “cold smokes” trout. Select cuts of trout are coated with Kosher salt and dill and bathed for hours in red oak and charcoal smoke, chilled to 56 degrees by being passed through an ice chamber. The resulting product, finely shaved, is akin to lox.