How to salt bream - two salting methods

How to salt bream for drying

Dry salting is used for drying. The goal is to get rid of moisture as much as possible so that the fish is dried and does not have time to spoil. Large bream must be gutted before salting. If the fish contains caviar, it can be salted separately.

Remove the entrails, gills and wash the fish thoroughly. It is not enough to just roll the bream in salt. It is imperative to pour salt inside the abdomen and into the interbranch space. You can’t skimp on salt here, otherwise the fish will go rotten.

Bream scales are like armor, and salt will not pass through it, which makes salting the fish difficult, especially if the bream weighs more than 3 kg. Using a sharp knife, make a cut along the entire line of the back - from the head to the tail. Also add salt inside this cut. Place the salted bream in a salting container and sprinkle the fish with salt again.

For a bream weighing 5 kg, you need at least 2 cups of salt. Place a pressure on the fish and put it in a cool place for salting.

After a day, the salt will begin to draw moisture from the fish, and water will appear in the container. It is not necessary to drain it, and the bream will be better salted in its “own juice”. For bream weighing 5 kg, salting requires at least 5 days.

How to salt bream for smoking

For smoking, it is recommended to salt the bream in brine. This is a quick method, and you can add spices right away to enrich the taste of the finished product and get rid of the smell of river mud.

Preparing bream for salting in brine is exactly the same as for dry salting. Place the fish in a salting container and prepare the brine:

• 1 l. water;
• 100 gr. salt;
• spices.

If desired, you can add a ready-made set of pickling spices to the brine.

Boil the brine and cool it to room temperature. You cannot pour boiling or even hot brine over fish. The bream will be cooked in boiling water and the meat will come off the bones. When smoking, the fish may simply fall apart without having time to smoke properly.

The brine should completely cover the fish, and to prevent it from floating, press it down with an inverted plate. If the plate is heavy enough, there is no need to install a bend. Bream should be kept in brine for 12 hours to 24 hours, depending on the size of the fish.

Watch the video on how to salt large bream for drying or smoking: