Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Packing fish today

Well, that didn't take long. The internet, properly utilized, is a wonderful tool. I quickly found the following website using keywords that included the model of my Vacmaster 215:

https://diypreparedness.net/make-your-own-mres-with-retort-canning/

This one even featured a pic of a pressure cooker that looks exactly like mine, too. I found a few links to the Alaska Outdoors Forum, but they focused on preserving salmon more than meals ready to eat. It all looks pretty much like I would imagine as a veteran fish canner. As an MRE eater since their invention (I was a C-ration eater on active Army duty), I suspected that some meal types would be better in retort pouches than others. Like you posted about your bear chili, stews/cassarole type meals featuring diced meats would probably work best, especially for a novice with retort pouches like me. I'm mostly interested in bivouac meals, not base camp meals.

Can you comment on this website? Any other advice or tips?

Thanks in advance.

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Chitina reds.
Bellies and strips. Brined then allowed to crust. Weather has been cooperative.
Put in cold smoker tomorrow, Monday. Couple days of cottonwood smoke. Vacuum bagged and in the freezer.

........A pressure gauge and a pressure relief valve (plus the rubber plug pop-off) will not lose pressure through anything except temperature. A true retort (usually medical uses) maintains pressure by adding some fluid to maintain pressure even though the temperature is falling. The stuff in the bag needs to cool down without dropping the pressure.

I hope that was clear.......

Huh. Kinda'. The link mentioned the pressure during cool off and stressed the importance of letting the bags cool well beyond an hour or two after full cooker pressure drop, and I understand that.

Did you retrofit your cooker with some sort of adjustable pressure relief valve to replace the rattle weight? And that maintains pressure even after cooling?

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Started the smoking. Cold smoke for a couple days.

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Started the smoking. Cold smoke for a couple days.

Brine time vs. brine concentration is the eternal question, and one that caused every batch to end up somewhere on a very broad spectrum.

Sitka deer was kind enough to share his method with me. Every batch is just right and consistent now.

To some extent brine time is dependent upon how salty the brine is and how salty you want the fish. You need some salt in fish you cold smoke to prevent spoiling, since no heat is used.
I do wet brine and I went too lite on salt in the liquid. I actually took the strip and bellies out this morning and sprinkled salt on them, for flavor. I use a brown sugar/salt brine.
The dill idea interests me. I have attempted, unsuccessfully, to get a jalapeño flavor into the fish. I need to try again. Likely, jarring the straps after smoking is the time to get the jalapeño flavor in.