Need your two cents.

I got into mess of northerns the other day and I plan on pickling them. I searched through a bunch of recipes and finally found one. The problem I’m having is, None mention shelf life. Do they need to be refrigerated or pantry? I’m planning on using pint jars. Any advice or suggestions on any part of the pickling process would be appreciated. I really don’t want to kill myself or anyone else. Thanks.

Unless you are going to pressure can them then they need to be refrigerated. Besides, they are best served cold. This is the recipe I use and everybody loves the fish it makes.

Cut into bite size chunks. Soak in 1 cup canning salt mixed in 1 gallon of water for 48 hours. Then rinse with clean water. Cover fish with white vinegar and soak for 48 hours. Then drain.

Brine is made by mixing 4 cups white vinegar, 2 cups sugar, 4 bay leaves and 4 Tablespoons of pickling spices. Bring to a boil. Let cool and add 3 Tablespoons lemon juice. Put cut up fish layered with onions in 3 quart jars. Add brine. Let sit for 7 days. Keep refrigerated. The fish is ready to eat then, but tastes better the longer it is in the brine. Best at about 2 months. You can use almost any fish. Saugers are great as are gills and even sheephead.

I would agree…. stuff that can sit on a shelf and not rot(that should), scares me

i netted a bunch of suckers and butchered them out recently and had the same problem.

All the research i did NOT yield a NON-refrigerated method except by pressure canning. I opted to not pressure can, mostly because i don’t like the texture change (it’s like eating tuna fish)

Other than that there are about a million recipes for canned fish and they all are about like the one above. The pre-brine and pre-acid are both pretty important. MY bones virtually disappeared after 48 hours of acetic acid (vinegar, 5%) I’m in the midst of my 5-7 spicing bath now.

Must be in fridge until consumed. I ate some last weekend that I pickled last June. This is a link to the best recipe I have used.

http://www.idofishing.com/forum/showflat.php/Number/772437/fpart/1/pickled-fish

Hope you like it.

Todd

Freeze the pike before pickling to avoid tapeworms.