Fish is a perishable food product, making it easily susceptible to microbial attacks. Therefore, adequate drying becomes paramount to make fish shelf-stable. In the quest for food safety, the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute developed a rotary smoking kiln to reduce product-human contact and contamination. This study, therefore, evaluated the performance of the new kiln and the existing model-B, concerning some quality attributes of smoked fish. Catfish (Clarias gariepinus) was used for the evaluation, and charcoal and gas were used as an energy source. Quality assessments were conducted on the fish products using standard methods. The proximate qualities of the samples in the two kilns were not significantly or negatively affected. The two kilns lowered the level of heavy metals in the fish within the global permissible limits. Additionally, the PAHs of the products from the two kilns, regardless of the energy source, were lower than the global permissible limit. Out of the total PAHs recorded in the fish dried in the rotary kiln powered with charcoal (8.43 µg/kg) and gas (18.08 µg/kg), only 0.42 and 0.26 µg/kg, respectively, were carcinogenic. Similarly, 0.40 and 0.26 µg/kg were carcinogenic out of the total PAHs recorded in the samples dried in the model-B kiln powered with charcoal (9.19 µg/kg) and gas (16.54 µg/kg), respectively. The products from both kilns received good overall acceptability. Therefore, considering the addressed challenge of opening the model-B kiln before trays could be changed, resulting in reduced risk of product contamination, the rotary kiln is an improved version/model of the NSPRI smoking kiln.