Question about curing fish

[kclonn]

I recently obtained a book by a lady that owned and ran a very successful smokehouse here on the Oregon coast, in Rockaway.  In this book she details how she smoked fish.  I have never heard of anything like her process and wondered what folks here thought.  People have been coming to her shop from around the world for years, so the product is good. For her cure, she uses 4 lbs food grade salt, 1 lb white sugar, 1 lb brown sugar and 1 3/4 lbs Prague powder #1.  She then cures the fish (salmon in this case) for from 1 to 2.5 hours depending on the size of the fillets.  Then smokes the meat.  Does anyone have any experience with anything similar to this?  I am wondering if that much Prague powder is a good thing or if the short cure times minimizes the actual amount in the meat.  Thoughts?

Keith

 

[tropics]

Does she say how many lbs. of fish it will cure? She may have only given the fish a lite coating.

 

[kclonn]

She didn't indicate how much fish it would cure, but she showed pictures of her adding the cure and she pretty much coated the meat with a light covering of the powder, then rinsed it off after it was done curing.  I am going to give it a try, but it just sounds so different than anything I have ever seen before.  But as I said, her shop was very successful and she had many major companies asking to buy her process, but she wouldn't give up the process until she retired, then she sold it in her book.

 

[daveomak]

Keith, afternoon...... Holy Cow..... 1.75 #'s cure #1 is enough nitrite to cure over 700 #'s of fish..... Are you sure that is not a misprint....

1.75 ounces would cure about 50 #'s of fish and 4 #'s salt and 2#'s of sugars would fall in line with a good recipe for 50#'s of fish... maybe...

4#'s salt, 2 #'s sugar and 1.75 #'s cure #1..... you would add about 5-7 grams of that mix per pound of fish... for a 150-200 Ppm ingoing nitrite...

 

[Bearcarver]

 
I recently obtained a book by a lady that owned and ran a very successful smokehouse here on the Oregon coast, in Rockaway.  In this book she details how she smoked fish.  I have never heard of anything like her process and wondered what folks here thought.  People have been coming to her shop from around the world for years, so the product is good. For her cure, she uses 4 lbs food grade salt, 1 lb white sugar, 1 lb brown sugar and 1 3/4 lbs Prague powder #1.  She then cures the fish (salmon in this case) for from 1 to 2.5 hours depending on the size of the fillets.  Then smokes the meat.  Does anyone have any experience with anything similar to this?  I am wondering if that much Prague powder is a good thing or if the short cure times minimizes the actual amount in the meat.  Thoughts?

Keith

Obviously the short curing time keeps it from being as scary as it sounds, but since different things absorb things at different rates, including different kinds of fish, I wouldn't know how anyone could figure out how long each fish or piece of fish has to spend in that strong a cure.

Bear

 

[kclonn]

I know.  That's why I posted this.  It just did not make sense to me.  

 

[dirtsailor2003]

I've stopped at Karla's many times when she was still Smokin. Never bought the book so can't say much about her process.

I smoke a bunch of fish and have never used cure #1. But I'm also not selling it and it doesn't sit around long enough to need cure.

 

[nevrsummr]

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• nevrsummr
• Jan 18, 2016

I had the same question. The book doesn't say anything about botulism or lawsuits so I think this system must work well. It worked well for her for 47 years.

I was hoping to see more posts on people using it.

From what I read Karla was a very neat woman, and was willing to share everything she learned in her life time of smoking meat.

I bought the book because a reputable restaurant in town told me they use her recipes, very good I might add. They sold $160,000 in smoked fish in the last 3 years,and also sell fresh fish and sushi.

 

[nevrsummr]

Have you tried it KC?