Best way to freeze fresh fish?

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
There are a lot of great ideas here, many of them to avoid the two biggest problems with freezing fish. Slow freezing and freezer burn. The slower the fish freezes, the larger the ice crystals that form in the flesh and the more the muscle fibers get pierced and leak when the meat thaws. You end up with a mushy product when it thaws. Freezer burn is the water in the flesh "evaporating" from the meat (it's actually sublimation but the result is the same) often crystallizing on the surface of the fillet or in the bag, basically drying out the fillet.

So you want to freeze the fillets as quickly as possible and then seal them against moisture loss and freezer burn. Use the coldest freezer you have access to (chest at it's lowest temp works best), put heavy aluminum baking sheets in to prechill for half an hour, put a piece of wax or parchment paper on each sheet, and lay your bare naked fillets uncovered on the sheets and freeze for a couple hours. Then spritz them with a little water every 15 minutes or so, flipping them to get a nice ice glaze on all sides of the fillet. The aluminum sheet conducts heat away from the fillets very effectively and speeds up the freezing and the ice glaze protects very effectively against freezer burn. Once well glazed and frozen, you can vacuum seal or simply store in freezer bags. My family owned a H&F lodge and that's how we processed our clients catch in upright freezers until my Dad invested in a small flash freezer and gave me back some of my teenage evenings freezing our clients fish.
 
Stillaqua...that is an intersting technique. I imagine that is similar to what comercial processors do (pre-chill & flash freeze). One thing I neglected to mention in the way we handle fish is that the freshly vacuum sealed fillets are typically in a cooler full of ice & water for awhile before freezing. Your description explains why our fish keeps so well, since it is already as cold as it can get without freezing before going into the deep freeze, it would freeze very quickly once it hits the chest. I never thought about it that way but it makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
 
Another way to freeze your fish faster is to put a container of saturated salt water (23.3% salt/water) in the freezer... It's temperature will get to ~-6F, if your freezer is that cold... the dunk the vac-packed fish in that solution for a rapid freeze..
you can even dunk the fish in it... some say adding Karo syrup to the water will add a very nice glaze to the fish to protect it..
 
Another way to freeze your fish faster is to put a container of saturated salt water (23.3% salt/water) in the freezer... It's temperature will get to ~-6F, if your freezer is that cold... the dunk the vac-packed fish in that solution for a rapid freeze..
A lot of West Coast salmon fishing lodges and commercial fish boats use that method with fancy recirculating brine freezers. Before he bought the commercial flash freezer, my Dad tried filling a small old chest freezer half full of brine, ran some couplings and hoses through the sides and used a gas water pump to recirculate the water. Worked great at first until everything outside the freezer iced up, the hoses cracked and the brine leaked out all over the shed, freezing everything it touched. Guess who got to clean it up?
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky