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Is the best way to perserve fish in an icy salt water slurry? If so, should I be plugging the two drain holes in my fishbox when I've got fish in there?
I like to bleed the fish as they hit the deck and then drop them in an icy salt slurry. Once the action dies down, I will go ahead and gut and de-gill and then normally actually leave the fish in the slurry for a full day to a day and a half. To me the fish always seems to have a better texture and taste when I do it this way.
I bleed in the water. When the fish is blead out i wil gut, pack the cavity with ice and in the slurry it goes. One thing with gutting the fish, it allows your ice slurry to get packed into the empty cavity and will drop the core temp quicker. Leave the guts in and that is more fish that needs to be cooled.
I like to gut for the same reason On The Edge 1 mentions and also to get rid of all the internals and literal crap that would seep into the flesh, you figure that has to be full of bacteria.
It is how I have always done it after having some fish a buddy caught and then froze it whole in a milk carton ... it tasted like crap.
One says to gut and the other does not mention gutting???
Exactly. The top link is the quick and dirty, the bottom is intended for folks ho want to get top price from Japanese buyers...it is therefore more inclusive.
-Fish names can be offensive, the other day I was at the pier and asked a lady if I could see her big red snapper and she punched me in the mouth! -Listen
Preserving fish in the fish box
