freezing salmon

Had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. Thought would ask others on the subject. Topic was freezing salmon... I am a vacuum pac guy when comes to freezing salmon. Would say that after about 90 days the fish starts to loose its freshness for a thaw and BBQ supper, still tastes good but a little flat.... my friend, on the other hand, uses a commercial freezer, which is much colder than regular freezer. He water dips his salmon to get a glaze then keeps in freezer, unwrapped ... he says will keep its fresh taste for years...

What do you think??

Thanks
PB
 
It's subjective. Some people are convinced frozen fish is never as good as fresh, even if only for a couple of days. I vacuum pack, freeze and consume within a year. Haven't tried the dip and freeze method for salmon but it have used it for prawns and it works very well. Can't tell the difference myself.
 
Like sky I have ate vacuum packed salmon a year later. The fat does brown, if you don’t like it you can cut off the brown fat and it gets rid of the fishy taste.

Funny enough I just had some pink salmon from last year and it stored better then the Harrison white chinook.

Put the pink in tin foil with lots of butter dill and lemon and it tasted the same as fresh.
 
I haven't water dipped salmon but I have water covered crab and prawns/shrimp. Water covering the shrimp/prawns works well. I mark all my vac packed fish in the freezer with dates/species etc.. I have had a food saver vac packer before and now have a commercial chamber vac packer. I have some pieces frozen that were packed one day apart from each other; some in food saver vac packs and some in the new chamber machine. The food saver pieces are so much more degraded than the chamber vac packer that they don't even look anything like the same age of freezing. The food saver pieces look like they are months and months older than the chamber machine stuff.
Our deep freezer though is a commercial grade one made for restaurant industry having an oversized compressor. When I freeze in our house freezer rather than our commercial freezer the fish does degrade faster.
 
I worked a day at a fish mongers once to help a guy out. He was a commercial fisherman with a small fish store in Enderby. Anyways, he swore by the dip and freeze method.

I vacuum seal it and it never lasts a year so always tastes pretty good to me.
 
if i have the room, and time i will throw the fillets on a cookie sheet or something similar and when they are just starting to freeze, i transfer to my vac sealer. there is zero residual oxygen in the bags and they last a long time. just found some fillets in my freezer from 2016 and smoked it up. tasted fine.
 
if i have the room, and time i will throw the fillets on a cookie sheet or something similar and when they are just starting to freeze, i transfer to my vac sealer. there is zero residual oxygen in the bags and they last a long time. just found some fillets in my freezer from 2016 and smoked it up. tasted fine.
I do the same except I put them in the freezer till completely frozen and I get a really good airtight seal with my food saver.
 
When i comercial trolled we froze the fish then glazed(dipped) them twice, but that was in a freezer that was -60. At home i'll fillet put them in a freezer bag, fill with water, push the air out and they last a long time. I check every month or so and add water if needed.
 
Info is on the internet. The speed at which it freezes matters; faster is better. The temp it is stored at matters; lower is better. Water contains oxygen oxidation causes it to go rancid. If you smoke you have diminished taste capability. It is hard for me to eat any frozen fish.
 
Info is on the internet. The speed at which it freezes matters; faster is better. The temp it is stored at matters; lower is better. Water contains oxygen oxidation causes it to go rancid. If you smoke you have diminished taste capability. It is hard for me to eat any frozen fish.

Usually when I smoke fish it’s cause i want it to taste smoky.

and you should defrost your fish before you eat; will be much easier. ;)
 
Interesting. We wrap our dinner sized pieces tightly in saran wrap, then vacuum pack in a chamber vac system. Easily last a year and still taste good to me. But we did upgrade to 5ml bags compared to the normal 3 ml bags.
 
It's a matter of personal taste. Vacuum packed fish is better than just freezing it naked but neither will beat the taste of fresh fish. I've found that often, vacuum packed fish will lose their seal and it is usually due to the holes made by the small pin bones that are in the belly section of the fish. To mitigate that, I roll up a piece of paper towel to size and place it over the pin bones so when the bag is vacuumed tight, the bag will not be punctured. Also, I've found that defrosting the fish in the refrigerator and not at room temperature helps.
 
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