Anyone know how to can trout with bone in ?

-- Don (hihilldon@yahoo.com), June 17, 2000

Answers

Hi Don, I'm not 100% sure of these times, so you may want to double check them elsewhere. I believe we used 10lbs of pressure for 75 minutes or something close to that. All we did was skin the fish when we cleaned them, we froze them until we had enough to do a packer full. When the time to can came we cut them into steaks and packed them tight into pint jars we added only a teaspoon of salt and processed. They turn out very much like canned salmon. I even heard of a lady who added ketchup to give it a salmon like color. Good luck, Mike

-- mike (mleeyworm@juno.com), June 18, 2000.

Here's what it says in Putting Food By for trout:

Pressure canning only. Raw pack and exhaust. Use pint jars (preferably straight-sides) with 2-piece screwband lids only.

About 35 pounds of fish, rough weight, will fill 12 pint jars.

Dress, clean, scale, scrub perfectly fresh fish. Split the fish, leaving in the backbone; cut away the thin belly strip. Cut in jar- length pieces and brine the pieces for 60 minutes in a cold solution of 3/4 cup pure pickling salt dissolved in one gallon of water. Remove the fish pieces, drain and pack solidly just to the top of the jars - not more than 1/16 inch below the sealing rim - alternating head and tail sections upright in the jars for a firm pack, with skin sides nest to the glass.

Use a kettle of your big enameled boiling water bath for exhausting the jars, because they will be boiled in a weak bring that would mar the metal surface of your pressure canner. Do not cap the filled jars; put them, open, on the rack in the boiling water bath kettle; pour in a fresh hot bring of 1/3 cup pure pickling salt dssolved in one gallon of water, until the brine comes one inch above the tops of the jars. Bring to boiling and boil the jars briskly for 15 minutes, which should be enough to raise the temperture deep inside the jars to the minimum of 170F (check with your thermometer to make sure).

Remove the jars and invert them to drain on a wire cake-cooling rack for about three minutes. (Cap the slotted blade of a metal spatula over the mouth of the jar before you up-end it, and you wan't have to worry about bits of fish sliding out.) Right the jars, wipe their rims carefully to remove any speck of material which would interfere with the seal; put on the lids and screw the bands down firmly tight.

Pressure-process at 10 pounds (240F) for one hour and 40 miutes. Remove jars; air-cool naturally.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), June 18, 2000.

Asked my 87 yr old mother today how she cold-packed fish. The only thing different that somebody else posted---mom said to add a teaspoon of vinegar and one of salt to each quart jar of tightly packed fish. Need not be trout-works real well with carp, buffalo, catfish etc. The bones will turn to a chalkie thingy but is edible. Tastes like salmon upon opening 5 or 6 months later. rite smart eatin! Matt. 24:44

-- hoot gibson (hoot@otbnet.com), June 20, 2000.

The method above should not be followed. It is not safe. You need to leave 1 inch of room at the top of the jars when packing with fish. Only use pints, not quarts. They need to be in a pressure cooker for 75 minutes. As you can see, what I am saying is quite different than what is written above. Canning fish can be very unhealty and possibly deadly if not done properly.

-- dirk martin (martindirk@hotmail.com), October 13, 2001.