Canning Salmon Safely

Last week, I had a conversation with someone who had come to the office for pressure canner gauge testing. She was my age (not young) and had gone dipnetting, catching a chinook and about 12 sockeye salmon. We compared notes about past experiences at the Copper River and agreed that the long dip nets feel a lot heavier than they did 25 years ago and that perching precariously on a riverbank may be better left to the more youthful.

Still, I wondered if I might have time to make the long drive, spend as many as 12 hours holding a net in the water and cleaning and chilling the fish for the drive home. If I caught my fish limit, this would be the exhausting prelude to another couple of days of preserving. So, a choice between the athletic effort and primal thrill of salmon hitting my net in the mesmerizing, silty, rushing water or several more summer days sitting in my office?

There is still plenty of summer left to decide if you will have a dipnetting adventure and how you will preserve your salmon. If you choose to jar your salmon, be sure to follow these steps for a safe and high-quality product.

Top-quality canned products start with the freshest fish possible. At the river, handle the fish carefully to avoid breaking the backbone; if clubbing the fish, try to keep this to one solid whack to stun the fish. When you get to clean running water, clean the fish as soon as possible to stop deterioration by removing the gills, which contain blood, bacteria and dirt, and keeping the fish cold on a bed of drained ice until you get home. Don’t allow fish to soak in ice water.

Keep the fish very cold prior to jarring. If the fish is frozen, defrost, but keep cold until jarring. You may choose to descale fish by rinsing with a solution of vinegar and water (2 tablespoons of vinegar in a quart of water) and running a spoon from tail toward head against the scales. All parts of the fish are edible, but some people prefer to descale the fish because they are sometimes hard to remove from the canning jars. Most often head, fins and tails are not jarred.

Put approximately 2 -3 inches of water into a pressure canner with a rack on the bottom and place it on your heat source. You can use any part of the fish for canning. Fish should be cut into jar-sized pieces; they do not need to be skinned or boned.

Fill cleaned, wide-mouth pint or half-pint canning jars with salmon to one inch from the rim. Fish should be packed solidly to eliminate air spaces. Run a slim plastic or silicone utensil around the packed fish to help align and settle the fish. Seasonings, including salt, can be placed in the bottom or on the top.

UAF Cooperative Extension has a publication titled "Add Variety to Home-Canned Fish" that offers some ideas for seasoning. Salt is usually added using ½ - 1 teaspoon per pint jar. Wipe the jar rims with a damp, clean cloth or paper towel and place new, clean flat lids on the rim, adding the screw band and tightening firmly with fingers.

Place the jars on the rack in the canner. If you have enough jars for more than one layer, place a rack between layers. Put the lid on your canner with the vent open and turn the heat up to high, waiting until steam pours out of the vent in a thick, steady plume. Set your timer for 10 minutes after you see this dense flow of steam. This amount of time will allow air to be expelled, and a consistent temperature to be achieved throughout the canner.

After 10 minutes, close your vent or petcock or place your vent cover or weighted gauge on the canner lid. Wait until the pressure comes up to 10 pounds per square inch (psi) with a weighted gauge or 11 psi on a dial gauge. NOTE: If you are at a higher altitude, check with the Cooperative Extension Service for the correct psi.

Set your timer for 100 minutes for both pints and half pints. The canner pressure must stay at the specified pressure for the entire time. Once 100 uninterrupted minutes have passed, turn off the heat and allow the canner to cool and depressurize entirely by itself. Do not open the petcock or remove the vent cover or weighted gauge.

When the canner is completely cooled, carefully open the lid, let the jars sit for another few minutes and remove with a jar lifter, placing the jars on a rack or newspaper or other insulated surface away from drafts.

Jars should sit untouched for 12-24 hours or until completely cooled. Then, remove the rings, check for depressed lids and carefully grasp the edges of the flat lid to ensure that it is sealed. You do not need to put the rings back on the jars. You may clean the jars gently and be sure to label the jars indicating the contents, the date jarred and the processing method (i.e. salmon with jalapeno, 10 psi/100 minutes).

The first time I went dipnetting, I sent my parents a photo, which provoked a strange response from my Philadelphia-born and raised mother. She said, “Do not forget who you are.” This may have had to do with my description of standing on rock cliffs, dispatching fish with a fish bat and then gutting the fish, etc. I never did get an explanation from her, but I will encourage any Alaskan who has considered dipnetting to give it a try. I guarantee that the possibly grueling, fully immersive and sometimes meditative experience will not make you forget who you are.

Leslie Shallcross is a registered dietitian and the Tanana District health, home and family development agent for Cooperative Extension Service, a part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She can be reached at 907-474-2426 or lashallcross@alaska.edu.