IceShanty.com's Ice Fishing Community
Montana => Ice Fishing Montana => Topic started by: oldschoolben on Jan 12, 2021, 06:28 AM
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How do you all freeze your fish? I never thought fidh stored well in the freezer
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Freezer bag filled with enough water to cover fish .. ;)
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Grew up with the water filled milk cartons. PITA if you ask me. Effective but not really friendly unless you wanted to use all the fish in a carton plus take up a lot of freezer space.
Got a vac pack. That's OK too but bags are pricey and it's a process to process.
My current procedure is this:
Plastic wrap, lay a fillet (or a row of fillets), flip over and lay another layer. This works pretty good for about 4 layers depending on the thickness of your fillets. As I roll over I'll ease air out and fold the ends of the plastic wrap in to seal. Sure, this is also a "process" but for me there's a payback. I can place multiple "bundles" into a Ziplock freezer bag and mark with the contents and date. Better, if I want to go in and peel off like two nice walleye or pike fillets, it's easy. Open it up, unroll, pop off what you want, roll it back up and put it back. EZPZ.
The idea is to have a layer of plastic tight to each side of the fillet. If you've squeezed the air out as you go that virtually eliminates freezer burn, at least for the near future. Plus it's easy to use "less than a bundle/package without damaging the rest of the frozen fish. One more thing: Eat that stuff up! Fish only freeze well for so long and the fattier the fish, the less time that is.
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Vac sealer , no freezer burn and take up a lot less space , I use to freeze in water
1# perch fillets , my walleyes are froze singularly , we all have our own way
(https://i.postimg.cc/5jQQ2Yv5/FFA1-F2-B6-45-FD-4009-8-CF5-864-A745-DB2-E2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/5jQQ2Yv5)
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started with milk cartons long ago as esox mentioned. then water filled freezer bags. then vac pac for couple years. now evolved back to simple effective water freeze in ziplock.
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Vac sealer , no freezer burn and take up a lot less space , I use to freeze in water
1# perch fillets , my walleyes are froze singularly , we all have our own way
(https://i.postimg.cc/5jQQ2Yv5/FFA1-F2-B6-45-FD-4009-8-CF5-864-A745-DB2-E2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/5jQQ2Yv5)
X2 Just had some 11 month old perch done this way and they were great!
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I vacuum seal them. I buy 50' rolls of vacmaster vacuum material from various online sources. Much less expensive than Food Saver brand bags.
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ziplock freezer bags with water. I use buttermilk for catfish
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We vacuum pack our fillets. We portion up what we can eat in one meal. It's easy to store in the freezer for us. Because I smoke the salmon. I seal the fillets in larger quantities so when I get to smokin I can do a large batch. Use to do the water in ziploc bag, but it took days for the "Block" to thaw out to use the fish. I also use to freeze the fish after cleaning. Now I fillet everything for two reasons - more storage space in the freezer and easier to cook/smoke.
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Another vote for the vac packs in general. I like canning my salmon after smoking. If I get a good amount of ling, I'll vac pack half of it and salt preserve the other half of it.
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Another vote for the vac packs in general. I like canning my salmon after smoking. If I get a good amount of ling, I'll vac pack half of it and salt preserve the other half of it.
I am curious about this salt preserving, how is this done?
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Albo, it's pretty easy, this website describes it well...
https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-make-salt-cod-1327910
I learned it while I lived in SE Alaska, kept at it when I moved home to Montana because I have a few old family recipes that call for salt cod and it's usually $15/pound when I see it in the stores around here.
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Thanks MontanaFlyGuy
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I use a chamber-style vacuum packer. Machine is pretty expensive but nice thick freezer bags are about $.07 each. Works great!
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Vacuum sealer. We put cleaned fish fillets in vacuum bags then in freezer for 20-30 minutes. Any moisture is frozen and then you seal them. Works great for the wife and I.
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I'll add a vote for the vacuum sealer. Have been using it for 3 years and hasn't failed me. Have had 2 year old fillets that were fresh as when I put them in the bag. (same story for elk steaks!). I'd say it was worth the investment.