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The Well-Bled Salmon. Published in Fishermens News, Nov 2005 Raising the quality bar. Trollers adopt new techniques. By Jeremy Brown.
How it's done- maybe not for the squeemish, but then what are you doing reading about dead fish anyway?
Salmon caught by trollers are widely regarded to be the best salmon on the market. Not only are the fish taken whilst still in the open ocean prime, before the various biological changes preceding spawning begin to drain the nutrients from the flesh, but the individual attention given to each fish ensures that the natural integrity of the product is best maintained. The standard process is described as follows;
One fish at a time. Starting as each hooked fish is brought to the side of the boat, it is first stunned whilst still in the water, with a smart blow on the head and lifted aboard with a gaff hook, again by the head, taking care that the body is untouched. Since leaving its natal stream years before, the salmon has not experienced contact with a single hard object, so many trollers will land the fish onto a piece of soft foam to avoid bruising. Each fish is immediately bled, either by cutting a gill arch or an incision to sever an artery near the heart. Once the fish has had time to bleed, it is placed belly up in a V-shaped cleaning trough, the gills are removed (and head on a freezer troller), and the belly slit from anus to a point between the pectoral fins, an inch or so short of the throat latch. A very good indication of the skill of the cleaner is the straightness of this cut. Along the midline of the belly runs a strip of white fatty gristle. A good straight belly cut will not show any pink flesh at all from the belly fins forward. A clean cut is then made around where the viscera attach inside the collar and the guts and eggs or milt removed as one. Now the fiddly work begins. Any remaining membranes must now be detached, the kidney is slit and scraped clean. The transverse bones across the spine at the back of the belly cavity now are carefully cut, so that any remaining blood and kidney material can be removed with a brush, which is also used to remove any remaining blood around the collar. Next the blood must be massaged from the veins in the belly, by working a rubber spatula gently down each vein. To finish the bleeding process, gentle water pressure from a soft-tipped latex hose is applied into the rear of the belly cavity where the blood vessels along the backbone go into the tail. After applying and releasing pressure several times, the tail is worked gently from side to side to facilitate the release of any remaining blood.
Rinse and repeat. After rinsing inside and out, each fish allowed to rest for a few minutes before, in an ice boat, being put below and iced, whilst on a freezer troller, the fish is gone over one or even two more times to remove any remaining spots of blood, membranes or sea lice, rewashed, dried and made ready for the freezer plates. All of this has to be accomplished and the chilling process begun well before rigor mortis sets in. Certainly it is an involved and labor-intensive process, but being the best was never easy. It has, however, just got a bit easier.
The 100% blood-free salmon. Trollers developed the laborious bleeding process above because a dead fish simply does not bleed very well. The best way to move blood is nature’s way- by the pumping action of the heart. Once the heart has stopped, any further bleeding only occurs from ‘drainage’ and this quickly slows as the blood congeals. Bleeding in water appears to work, since congealing is slower, but isostatic pressure; the same pressure inside and outside the fish, means that little blood will move once the heart has stopped.
Messing around with the hose.
A new technique for getting all of the blood out is making waves of excitement in the troll fleet. A few years ago, Ed Stern was working as a rookie crew member on the freezer troller Myriad’ out of Sitka. One slow day fishing, Ed noticed the amount of blood flowing from the large blood vessel along the backbone and tried applying water pressure directly to the vein. Not only did this appear to flush blood back and out around the collar, but in many instances the heart would appear to restart! By maintaining a gentle water pressure for twenty of thirty seconds, eventually the flow back out around the collar and throat would run clear, leaving virtually no blood in either the belly wall veins nor tail. The new cleaning technique not only vastly improved the quality of the finished product, but significantly reduced the amount of fussing needed to produce a blood-free fish.
Of Purloined pens and pipettes. By the end of the 2004 season, many of the fleet in Sitka had heard about this new technique. Crews began experimenting with ways to improve the messy business of getting a stream of water into a small blood vessel. Various modifications to readily available objects were tried. The end of a ball point pen slipped into the hose showed promise. In no time Murray Pacific’s gear store in Sitka noticed the rapid disappearance of a particular style of pen they had been giving away to customers! In the spring of 2005 as the technique was adopted by the Washington troll fleet, Geoff LeBon of the Halmia, a marine chemist when he isn’t trolling, produced perhaps the most elegant solution in a small plastic tip used on laboratory pipettes for titration procedures. Fitted into the end of a length of ˝” latex hose, the tip works perfectly with the head cut off as on a freezer troller, or head on as on an ice boat.
Response has been uniformly positive on the water, as Steve Spleen of the freezer troller Five Girls put it; “You get a top quality product with much less work. This eliminates at least one entire wash and rinse cycle. Before we sometimes would even use paper towels to get the last of the blood out, now it’s all done. When you get to the age many of us are, anything that takes repetitive stress off your hands is a double plus.” Tom Maclaughlin, CEO of Seafood Producers Cooperative sees much of the best troll fish from Alaska to California and is equally positive; “Anything that enables fishermen to continue producing top quality product, and is easier to do, will lead to not only increased production of top quality fish, but even greater consistency at the leading edge of the market.”
With other gear types looking for ways to improve the quality of their salmon, the technique offers opportunities too. Not only does a poorly bled salmon have a distinct funky/metallic aftertaste, but the appearance of veins and blood-spots is visually discouraging.
Resources;
Pipette tips; $29.40 for a minimum order of 1000, so team up with your friends.
Made by Quality Scientific Plastics, Cat# 145-10-500. Available through; Scientific Supply & Equipment, Inc 926 Poplar Place South http://www.scientificsupplyandequipment.com/
Cleaning troughs; most trollers make their own, but Mike Lipman at Precision Boat Works in Sitka makes the Cadillac;
Captions; 100% blood free White Chinook. Note the bones cut to facilitate kidney removal. Not so noticeable in a dark red salmon, any blood in a white Chinook would stand right out.
Tele Aadsen of the freezer troller Charity bleeds a king.
Close up of king,.
Bleeding a coho. Note the latex hose and pipette tip.
Tools of the trollers trade; Frost Combination knife and scraper, and spatula/brush.
Photo credits Martin Gowdy. |
