How To Can Fish
Yield: As Much As You Have!
Total Time:
Active: 45 Minutes. Canning: 100 Minutes. Cooldown: 12 Hours
And then the power goes out. Shoot. It’ll probably be back on shortly, but maybe it’s best if you don’t open the freezer door for awhile. What now?
It’s high summer and it’s hot. The sun rises early, and so do you; it sets late, and you spend every bright hour in the garden or on a tractor. It’s lunchtime and you don’t have time to cook! It’s too beautiful outside to waste time indoors. But you’re so hungry!
And then you see the salmon on the shelf that you caned last year. Or maybe it was albacore tuna, or halibut, or trout. There’s a line of mason jars filled with pink, tucked back on a dark shelf. Oh, thank goodness!
Pull out a can of fish, pop the lid, and let it drop into a bowl, its skin still sparkling with greens and blues! Add a scoop of relish, a dollop of mayo, maybe some mustard, salt, or diced veggies. Crush it all up with a fork and spread it on the closest bread-like thing you can find!
Now you can get back out to the garden. Or, if it’s cold, you can get straight under the covers with a book. Dinner’s taken care of. You cooked it last year so you wouldn’t have to worry about it tonight. You put fish in jars, and now you know you can’t ever let a season go by without doing it again!
Fish is, in fact, one of the easiest things you CAN can, as long as you use a pressure cooker. All you need is:
Materials Needed:
- Knife and cutting surface
- Pint jars or half-pint jars (wide-mouth are easiest to work with)
- Lids for your jars (new)
- Rings for your jars
- Pressure Canner
- Weighted-gauge or Dial-gauge
- Canning Rack
- Jar lifter
Ingredients:
Imperial Units
- Fish (Just about any kind)
- Salt: 1 tsp per half-pint, 2 tsp per pint (optional)
Metric Units
- Fish (Just about any kind)
- Salt: 5 ml per half-pint, 10 ml per pint (optional)
Directions:
- Set up your pressure canner!
If you've never worked with one, or need a refresher, check out our videos on canning basics here:
Weighted Gauge Pressure Canners: https://themasonjarsuite.squarespace.com/videos/weighted-gauge-pressure-canner/2016/3/28
Dial Gauge Pressure Canners:b> https://themasonjarsuite.squarespace.com/videos/2015/3/15/how-to-set-up-and-use-a-dial-gauge-pressure-canner - Get your jars, rings, and lids ready.
Make sure you're using NEW lids to ensure a safe seal. Check for knicks, scratches, or cracks.
Because we are pressure canning and packing the fish cold (we aren't heating it up first), you DON'T need to heat up your jars or lids. - Prepare your fish.
- Measure and cut the fish.
Cut the fish into desired sizes. You can cut it into chunks, steaks (through the spine), or slice pieces from a fillet.- If you're going for large pieces in each jar, measure the inside of the jar first (not all pints have the same depth!)
- You'll need an inch of headspace (25 millimeters) in the jar, so cut the fish into pieces that are 1 inch (25 mm) shorter than the jar's interior.
- For the average pint jar, you'll cut the fish to about 3.5 inches (89 mm) and for the average wide-mouth half-pint, cut the fish to about 1.5 inches (38 mm).
- Fill your jars with fish.
Pack it in tightly!
If the skin is against the glass, it can be beautiful on the shelf, but the scales tend to glue themselves to the sides of the jar.
- Add salt (optional).
- 1 tsp (5 ml) per half-pint
- 2 tsp (10 ml per pint
- Clean the jar rims
- Add lids and rings.
- Put water in the canner.
- Put jars in canner.
- Seal the canner.
- Begin heating.
- Exhaust steam for 10 minutes.
- Put regulator on canner with one weight on it (for weighted gauge canners), or put the safety weight on (for dial gauge canners).
- Wait for consistent rocking (for weighted gauge canners) or bring the dial up to 10 pounds pressure (PSI).
- Start a timer for 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes).
- Turn off heat and wait.
- Remove the regulator.
- Open the canner.
- Remove jars and let cool.
- Remove rings. Label and date!
If the fish is whole, get rid of the viscera, the head, the fins, and the tale.
You do NOT need to get rid of bones or skin. They will dissolve and be edible! Scaling is optional. Scales will also be edible, but can stick to the jar and be VERY difficult to get off later.
Add as much or as little as you like, but a rule of thumb is:
It's important to use NEW lids. You can re-use rings without issue, as long as they are clean.
For most canners (check the directions), you'll want about an inch of water (25 ml) in the canner.
Remember, you are NOT submerging the jars under water! You just want some water in there to create steam, which is what creates the pressure inside.
If you are using half-pints, and if you have a large enough canner, you may stack jars on top of each other. Personally, I try to offset them, so they are sitting on the edges of the bottom jars' rings.
Use a canning rack. If the jars touch the bottom of the canner, they may heat unevenly, causing them to shatter. That's a waste of fish AND jars!
This is important. As the inside of the canner heats up, steam forces air out, through the vent pipe. Exhausting the canner ensures that there are no pockets of air left inside, which could affect the temperature and pressure during cooking.
You may see some sputtering and inconsistent puffs of steam. That's normal, but wait until the steam is constant before starting your timer for 10 minutes.
Just slip it on there carefully. Make sure that it is loose. If using a dial gauge canner, this will usually be located next to the dial.
Not sure what that rocking looks like? Watch the video!
According to the USDA and tested recipes, fish needs to be canned under pressure for 100 minutes.
The timer should ONLY be started when rocking is consistent, or when your dial reads 10 PSI. If your dial drops BELOW 10 PSI, or if your regulator stops rocking, you MUST bring it back up to pressure and re-start your timer for 100 minutes.
Yay, you made it through 100 minutes, and your house smells like cooked fish!
Turn off the heat; do NOT move your canner or try to cool it down quickly. Let it sit until your dial has completely droped, or your safety pin has dropped, indicating that the pressure on the inside of the canner is the same as in your house.
Your fish has been cooking at about 235 degrees F /115 degrees C...ABOVE the boiling point of water! It's hot, and will take awhile to cool.
The jars will not properly create a vacuum seal until they have cooled to room temperature, so let them sit for at least 10 hours, or overnight.
Store your delicious fish! Remember, fish contains natural fats, and fats can go rancid, even in jars. Rancidity is caused by exposure to light and heat, so tuck the fish away in a closed cabinet or dark room for maximum flavor and quality. Try to use it up within about a year (when you're canning next year's fish!), but it should be good for quite awhile.
Nice job! Enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions and Quick Tips!
Never be afraid to ask!
- What kinds of fish CAN I can??
ANSWER: Pretty much any! However, lean fish like halibut or cod tend to break down in the process and may taste a little dry. You can add 1 TBS Olive Oil to each pint of lean fish to keep it moist. The perennial favorites seem to be salmon and albacore tuna!
- Does it matter what kind of salt I use?
ANSWER: Table salt and other very fine-grained salts weigh more per given volume, so be cautious if measuring by volume.
Experiment with different salts; pure salts without iodine or additives are preferred, but some rustic salts will add another dimension to your fermented products.
- Could I do this in a boiling water bath canner?
ANSWER: Sorry, but no! There are people who used to can fish, meats, and low-acid foods this way, but we now know that certain disease-causing organisms can ONLY be destroyed at higher heats, which is why we use pressure. People DO get sick from canned foods, and it's not just a short case of simple food poisoning. Just because it hasn't happened to someone you know, please don't put yourself or others at risk.
Unless indicated otherwise, images, recipes, and other content are Copyright The Mason Jar Suite and Trav Williams. You may print and utilize this information for home and personal purposes. If you wish to republish this recipe, please link to this post or get in touch for other purposes.
Never be afraid to ask!
- What kinds of fish CAN I can??
ANSWER: Pretty much any! However, lean fish like halibut or cod tend to break down in the process and may taste a little dry. You can add 1 TBS Olive Oil to each pint of lean fish to keep it moist. The perennial favorites seem to be salmon and albacore tuna!
- Does it matter what kind of salt I use?
ANSWER: Table salt and other very fine-grained salts weigh more per given volume, so be cautious if measuring by volume.
Experiment with different salts; pure salts without iodine or additives are preferred, but some rustic salts will add another dimension to your fermented products. - Could I do this in a boiling water bath canner?
ANSWER: Sorry, but no! There are people who used to can fish, meats, and low-acid foods this way, but we now know that certain disease-causing organisms can ONLY be destroyed at higher heats, which is why we use pressure. People DO get sick from canned foods, and it's not just a short case of simple food poisoning. Just because it hasn't happened to someone you know, please don't put yourself or others at risk.
Unless indicated otherwise, images, recipes, and other content are Copyright The Mason Jar Suite and Trav Williams. You may print and utilize this information for home and personal purposes. If you wish to republish this recipe, please link to this post or get in touch for other purposes.
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SPONSORS:
Thank you to Ball for supplying The Mason Jar Suite with jars for our first episodes!
Thank you to Granite•Ware for requesting custom videos and supplying us with canners!
