I just pulled some king fillets from the freezer and lost a good bit to freezer burn. One large piece, about 5 pounds, got pitched. To be fair, it was the last of last years fish and I missed it in the bottom. The rest got trimmed. Hopefully it comes out of the smoker In good shape.

So my question is, how do you prepare your salmon for the freezer?

I've heard everything from filetting, skinning, rinseing before freezing to bleed, gut, and steak with the skin on and still wiggling and then freeze, slime and all.

The former claim the skin and slime will make it taste fishy, the latter claim leaving it intact as possible will protect and keep it tasting fresher.

I typically filet, gently wipe any debris off with a paper towel and then vacum pack. Sometimes it holds up, sometimes not so well.

Way sayeth the brethern?

Tag

Bonk and bleed. Fillet and portion with skin on. Quick rise if necessary. Pat dry.

My secret is to slap it on some wax paper and fold it over. Nothing fancy but it keeps the goobers off the sealable area and gives the flesh a little more protection.

Vacuum seal it and you're golden.

One quick and cheap extra step and A LOT less worries.

Here is the deal with salmon:

Bonk/bleed/gut/gill. The only way to get the last bit of blood out of a salmon is to scrape the kidney, and then use a spoon and gently rub the inside of the gut cavity. Removing the guts eliminates the acid that belly burn the salmon. Removing the gills gets ride of bacteria that will grow in slush water and make the flesh soft. Scrape, rinse. Remove heart also. You want that fish "clean" to avoid bacterial growth.

Then, immediately chill in slush ice. (no more than 3 days) Do not let your fish get above 32 degrees. You want that water to burn your hands if you stick your hands in it without gloves.

Fillet. A properly cleaned fish does not need to be rinsed with fresh water. I repeat, do not rinse the fillet with fresh water. Fresh water gets into the flesh, and does bad things once frozen. (texture issue) Do not rinse. A clean fish is a clean fish.

Get it professionally vacuum packed or get a very high quality vacuum pac machine. Food savers are junk.. at best. Food savers should be outlawed as they have wasted more fish than the trawl fleet.

Thawing..

Do not thaw in the bag after 6-12 months. Up to six months, you can do whatever you want. After six months, if you want that very "fresh" taste most people don't think is possible for frozen salmon, follow these instructions:

Remove from freezer. Thaw for 20 minutes at room temp. That should be enough to remove frozen fillet from bag. Shave skin and ALL fat from fillet. Then let thaw on a plate covered in plastic wrap in the refrigerator. It'll taste as good as fresh. Blood and fat is what makes salmon taste like fish when frozen. You eliminated the blood/bacteria already, getting rid of the fat before it thaws and "seeps" into the fillet is key. If you thaw out the fillet in the bag while vacuum packed, you are marinating the fillet in fat juices that give it a fishy taste.


If you take care of your fish, don't use a foodsaver, and thaw correctly; a fillet should last over 2 years in the freezer, and not taste like fish.

Thanks Calvin. Any recs on a decent vacum packer?

What's your thought on steaking instead of filetting?

I fillet. Its a preference thing.

I use the one at the lodge, or pay to get mine done in town. 5k+ for those machines. I do hear good things about one of the cabelas models, if anybody wants to chime in about those.

Thanks!

Good info there, thanks for the tips.

tag

I have a CG 15 from cabelas and it is a rock solid unit. I have had it for 4 years now and it is still going strong, and I seal a lot of game with it every year. I would highly recommend it!

Get one of the chamber vacuum sealers. Like Calvin said, food savers are junk. Like so many things, it's a hard bite to take, at 1k or more, but it'll pay for itself and you'll be surprised at how much you use it.

You can also go lo-tech with good results. Realize that exposed cut flesh will likely have to be trimmed but you will otherwise have a good product. Follow the guidelines Calvin mention on initial prep; cleanliness - fast- is good advice. But keeping fish as whole as possible works as well. We chunk kings for roasting and simply wrap them in multiple layers of plastic (saran) type wrap. The cut ends are trimmed after thawing before roasting. Whole silvers and chum get the same treatment except that they are only headed and tailed before wrapping. Ideally the plastic is pulled as tightly as possible to exclude as much air as possible and prevent air-surface contact as much as possible. You can additionally wrap with paper though just plastic works for the year or less we keep fish as long as you use enough.

The only thing we don't do is allow fish to soak in water more than a couple of hours. I like to see the heart still pumping when when we open the fish up and have them wrapped shortly thereafter. Water is not a friend of dead fish.

Filleted fish don't freeze well IME without being vacuum sealed well. I'm sure the pricey ones are a pleasure to use. The bags you use are important also and there are machines better than food-savers which can be made to work just fine as long as you stay on top of your quality control and re-do as needed when there are issues. Money is well spent on better bags.

Calvin is spot on with regards to care before freezing and these things are key ...

Kill and bleed the fish immediately after catching.

Let them chill on ice for at least overnight and long enough for the whole fish to go limp. Don't fillet them when they're stiff.

Don't rinse the fillets in fresh water. If needed just wipe them with a paper towel to remove any blood, slime, or scales.

I have found there is one exception to rinsing fillets but it only applies to halibut and rockfish. No fresh water but you can rinse the fillets in ocean salt water with no adverse affects.

Another key to freezing fish or meat is flash freezing and I've proven to myself that this makes a big difference. Put the sealed packages in the fridge or an ice chest and get them as close to 32 degrees before freezing. Then put them in a single layer in the freezer. The object is to get them to freeze in the shortest amount of time as possible and ideally it should take only an hour, or a little more, to freeze rock hard.

Here's my two cents on Food Savers. It not the unit so much, it's the bags that are the problem. I have a Magic Vac unit that I bought at Alaska Butcher supply in Anchorage that works extremely well. The Magic Vac bags are far better than Food Saver bags and I've used both. The problem is it's more difficult to get the corrugated food saver bags to seal properly and stay sealed. They're also thinner and more susceptible to getting holes poked in them when you jostle packages in the freezer.

Put them in the large Zip-Locks with water. Freeze.

I agree with Calvin 100%. I will add this, whenever I wash or rinse fish I add lemon juice or vinegar to the rinse water. One of the by products fish skin/flesh produce is a base and the acid of the lemon juice/vinegar will cancel the base leaving no odor at all. Additionally, fish caught in the salt will have less slime than one caught in the fresh. Slime protects the fish but also contributes to odor. This is where the acid wash shines. This also works very well with shellfish, shrimp and crab. Fish should not smell.

^^^ + 1

A bit of of vinegar in a five gallon bucket full of water works very well at removing slime off of whole reds.

Interesting, good to know. I don't think I've ever eaten a salmon out of fresh water.

I'll add that a "clean" salmon I described is how power troll salmon must be prepared and iced in order to be sold. It's the highest quality salmon you can buy. (don't fall for the copper river hype)

And, peoples "fish" taste buds are all different. I can't eat fish that even has a hint of "fish". I have buddies who will eat the fishiest tasting salmon and love it.

I had a gallon of crappie filets in a zip lock and water one time and put it in cousins re fridge/ freezer side by side that soured befor it froze.

Pak and Fish head-

How much vinegar are we talking here for what amount of rise water? Like a capful in a gallon or a cup?

90% of my salmon comes out of the river. Most are still chrome but this vinegar trick might be great to de-slime a boot for the smoker.

I don't recall exactly but about a 1/2 cup to a cup in a 5 gallon bucket. I never measured it but it doesn't take a lot. With the right mix the slime will sluff off and float up to the top.

Heading and gutting - and processing if you can- before they go into rigor; certainly before they go limp- goes a long way toward avoiding fish slime issues. If they're sliming, you've an uphill battle which won't ever regain what has been lost. Fish oils are also part of the reason for fishy taste. To avoid those, target fish headed to smaller (shorter) rivers and species which tend to be less fat (chums).

White or red vinegar, does it matter?

I used white vinegar for whole fish that hadn't been gutted. It doesn't flavor the fish when there's no flesh exposed.

Haverluk, I do not have any particular ratio I usually dump some in a bucket. My process is to bleed and get put on ice ASAP. I usually bring ice with me. I usually freeze my fish cleaned, headed and tailed. Prior to freezing I wash in a vinegar solution, damp dry, freeze and wrap. I get fish bags at the butcher supply. These bags are long and sized for fish size. I get the size that is sized for silvers. I freeze, glaze then put them in these bags. I double the bags. I think vac packing is a very good method except when the seal gets broken.

As to the fat. I find there are two fats in the fish. The exterior sub cutaneous fat and the oil in the meat fibers. For me, the oil is yummy but the fat is not. Calvin brings up the continuing argument about "Best Fish". Of course the discussion is subjective. Take an ocean caught Kenai King and an ocean caught Yukon King, caught and treated as Calvin does, the Yukon king will have a lot more fat and oil. Both are wonderful and which is best will be a personal choice. I agree that ocean caught fish are the best. The discussion we have around my house is: which is better a dipped, at the mouth, Kenai red or a dipped, at Chitina, red. General consensus is the edge goes to the Chitina fish. In my opinion both are great and a big Kenai caught in the salt is the prettiest fish out there.

Interesting thoughts about Kenai vs Yukon kings. I never had the chance to catch or eat Yukon kings but I favored Kenai kings over others caught from the rivers in SC.

The best salmon I have ever eaten were those caught while working on a seiner around Kodiak.

A few days a week, when a nice 15# or so king came over the rail, I'd put a long stringer through his bottom jaw and toss him in the RSW. That night you'd pull up your fish, fillet him, and put the still quivering meat on the bbq.

Nothing has come close, even when it was a red or silver, or god forbid, even a humpy.

Kinda holds true for all the seafood I've eaten right out of the water. Live crab boiled in seawater, halibut, rockfish, ling, steelhead.....It all seems so much better when it is as fresh as can be right out of the salt.


Thanks for the many tips. Can't always have it squirming on the grill, good to know how to get as close as possible though!

I like reds, silvers, chums and even pinks but king is something else again. There is a reason it is called king. Same with tuna there is bigeye, yellowfin and yellowtail. Then way up there is bluefin.

Well, since we are really talking fish...(grin)


Winter kings are full of oil due to the cold water temp. Burn up your BBQ kind of oil. Very good fish. They don't freeze well at all, and are sold to the fresh market. Big bucks for the trollers. but volume is low.

Spring kings eating Krill about the best tasting salmon, IMO. I like winter king, but it's almost "too much" for the oil and prefer my kings when the water warms up a bit.

Early summer feeder kings eating candle fish are very good. That's what we get the most of.

Lastly for kings, kings with a steady diet of big herring are last on my list. I gut everything, so I have a good idea what they are eating. I'll eat them, but they aren't "melt in your mouth" good like a krill fed or candle fish fed king.

And then, you have red, orange, white, and variegated kings. IMO, variegated kings rule the roost. It's a white king, with orange stripes down the flesh. I thought they were a myth until I started catching them. The krill spring kings typically are red in flesh. Very good. Orangish kings are summer kings. A lot of hatchery and bigger kings are white. I like white, but I don't love it like some do.

You can't beat fresh, same day king. My favorite way to do it is to put same day king over charcoal. A chef at a lodge this year showed me how he cuts his fillets to the exact same thickness to BBQ. Best king I ever ate, and it was fresh that day. He had the cooking time down to the science. Cut the fillets to the exact same thickness every time. I'm sure you all know that cooking time is critical to king salmon.

Calvin
With you on white kings... to me they taste a bit muddy. We used to get $.10 a pound for them on the troller back in about '80. Then they learned how to market them and the price went through the ceiling.

We really like the white king done up as sushi/sashimi, haven't had it any other way. It's one of our favorites when eating raw fish.

After hearing all the hype about white king I ate some. For all the hype and price I thought I was missing something, maybe not.

I heard that. Glad we get something for them now. The price is less than red kings though. I'm boat shopping right now. Sold my power troller in late June as I didn't like it, and now I get to get another one.

Fyi, Here is a variegated king..



I also have to give a shout out for ocean June cohos. Really good. They are small, and the scales fall off, but they are about as good as it gets for a coho.

Was a fishy year for us.. Finally found a glass ball too.

Thanks for the tutorial on King salmon. The only kings I've caught were in streams or in the salt headed that direction. I do prefer the red/orange flesh, though.

Calvin knows what he speaks of. I definitely agree to never rinse salmon fillets if you want the best flavor and texture.