Thread: Crappie Question?

Ok I'v heard about putting water in the bag of fillets when you freeze them, is it necessary for short term storage or always no matter how long you freeze them? Also is it better to put salt on the fillets for storage?

I no longer fool with bags of water to freeze fillets. I bought this little jewel awhile back and it is the ticket for freezing fillets. I pat the fillets dry with paper towels before i put them in the bags and seal them.
Vacuum Seal And Freeze Food To Save Time And Money

I use water for short or long term and I never use salt at any time except when cooking. Been wanting one of those vaccum sealers also, mostly for deer meat though. A trick I do use is I never rinse my fillets, they go directly in the bag and fill with water. Seems to hold a little more flavor and simply thaw when ready and then rinse or soak overnight.

After you have tried it all the real key to my way of thinking is not mess with whats the best vacuum sealer, the principle of which is to remove the oxygen. We use margarine containers, plastic coffee cans, and if you are into space efficiency, get some freezer containers, they are square or rectangular. Fill em 1/3 or so with water then put yur fillets in. This will ensure that no air bubbles are trapped. No air= no spoilage. Fill the container leaving enuf headspace for the water to expand as it freezes and make sure you dont overfill or use too small of containers so that you are cramped for space and the top fillets might not end up sealed in ice. We used a professional, industrial kry-vac yrs ago and had a locker in a freezer plant kept a constant 0* Fahrenheit. 8 months later we had freezer burnt fillets. Grandpa used to save his 2 qt milk cartons and freeze fish in them and he had it right. We recently dug up a 3 lb margarine container of 2006 fillets, they were as good as if we had unthawed em 3 days after being froze.

Always freeze 'em in water and never have freezer burn. Like shoer, I learned from my grandpa, who used 1/2 gallon milk cartons. We'd cut off maybe the top 1/3 of the carton, put the fish in and cover with water - leaving space for expansion.

Nowadays, since we buy all our milk in plastic gallon jugs, I use freezer zip bags. I put the fillets in, cover with water, zip the bag mostly closed, leaving a little room to let air out. Then I'll lay the bag over on it's side so that the water starts to run out and quickly close the zipper the rest of the way. This forces out all the air and leaves room for the ice to expand in the freezer.

Like Horseshoer, I've pulled out bags that were over a year old and they were just as good as if I had froze then yesterday. This works for any kind of fish. We freeze smelt, trout, bullhead, catfish, etc. this way and it always has worked for me. In fact, we ate some of last year's steelhead last week, and it was as close to fresh as frozen fish gets.

Great info: My wife likes it!

CrappieDale
Team: BNB Crappie jigs

The other posters are right !! ziplock freezer bags and water only. I bought one of the fancy vac sealers and bags and put up some crappie and walleye I knew I would need to keep for a while because it was catfish and spoonbill season. Well I pulled out some of the walleye after about 6 months and it was edible but not near as good and with poor palitable texture compared the ones frozen in water. I freeze alot of catfish and spoonbill when they get to running also and have had some 3 yr old solid frozen fish taste very good from the ziplock and water bags. I miss labeled a tub and accidently left them under some other stuff in the big deep freeze but I wasn't about to waste them and they came out great. just my .02