How to brine bait

[Baitfish]

I'm brining bait for the first time and wanted to post how I'm going about it for anyone who wants to try it or to get any input from those who have tried it before.

Since bait can be scarce at times, I wanted to catch it when it's plentiful and preserve it for later use. After a great deal of googling and reading, I decided that brining, vacuum packing and freezing would deliver the best results. This is essentially the same method that the bait suppliers use. The ones that make a quality product anyways.

Just like your steaks and fillets, if you simply bag and freeze your bait, after a short time, it will get freezer burn and the quality will be poor. Enzymes will also continue to degrade the bait which will reduce the quality of the texture, aroma and color.
Brining will preserve the bait by lowering the water content and retarding the enzymatic actions. The result is bait that will look good, smell good and taste good (to a fish anyways) even after longer periods of freezing.

To further extend the shelf life of the bait, I decided to get a vacuum packer. I also googled this a lot and read a ton of reviews. It was worth the effort because these things don't appear to all be created equal and the Foodsaver I got has performed flawlessly. I also bought the higher quality Foodsaver bags. They are a little more expensive, but I think they will be worth it in the long run. I was being reasonably careful and the pins on my pinfish still went right through one of the bags.

There are two different methods of brining: wet brine and dry brine. Technically speaking, dry brining is curing. I used to raise hogs and I've cured a good many pounds of hams and bacon, brining is how you make corned beef. Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll stick to the same names that all the other articles use. Wet brining is soaking your bait in a cold salty mixture, dry brining is dusting the powder directly on the bait. Dry brining baits is done just prior to packaging and freezing or just after thawing. This will certainly toughen the bait and make it last, but over doing it would make it like a piece of jerky.

Brine is a mixture of brining powder, saltwater and ice. When the ice is added to this extremely salty mixture, the temprature drops dramatically. This is the same reaction as when you make ice cream and put rock salt on the ice. When you have the mix right, the brine is painful to put your hand into for more than a few seconds. When you drop live bait into this mix, they die almost instantly and the preservation begins. On a side note, mixing seawater and ice will create the same supercooling affect and will keep your catch a lot longer.

The most important part of all this is what to mix and how much. The brine powder is simply a mixture of salt and baking soda. The salt preseves and toughens the bait while the baking soda halts the enzymes that break down the meat and degrade the color. Some brining powders claim proprietary additives. If anyone knows what these are and what they do, please let me know. I am using a mix of 2 parts salt to 1 part baking soda by weight. The articles I read were unanimous on not using iodized salt as it will turn the bait brown. I suspect like those lovely cigar minnows in WalMart. You know, the ones in the yellow package that look about as appetizing as a chunk of mangrove root.

Back on point. The articles were split on coarse or fine salt. I can tell you from experience, fine salt will give a much more uniform result with a dry brine and will dissolve much faster in the seawater. Morton's pickling salt is very fine and has no iodine. It comes in 2 lb boxes, Arm and Hammer baking soda comes in 2 lb boxes. 2 salt, one soda, you're set.
I mixed brine for the first time today and it worked great. The powder dissolved almost instantly. I think I need more ice, but the mix was still VERY cold. The proportions I will use next time are: 1 lb brine powder, 2 gallons seawater 10 lbs ice. Mix the water and the powder then dump in the ice.

I left the pinfish in for about 6 hours. Then I fished them out (no pun intended) and let them drain for about 10 minutes. Vacuum packed into useable quantities and froze them.

They are now frozen solid and the appearance is surprizing. The color is very vivid and even the eyes look good. After they sit for a few days, I'll post a pic. I'll also follow up with a post on how it worked once I finally get to use them.

[fishnfool73]

Great thread. I am shocked how few people do this anymore. Try freezing them on a sheet pan for a few hours then package them. It makes a little difference as to how much water is left on them and they'll be nicer when you use them. I do it with ballyhoo and googeeyes for upcoming Tugas trips for some just in case baits. If I get enough fresh then they sit there til I need them.

[bolo]

Never use baking soda. Will have to give it a try. Great thread.

[BRunner346]

great post

[Baitfish]

I think fishnfools sugestion of prefreezing on a pan will work well. The remaining moisture makes it a little harder to vacuum pack. If they are already frozen, you can seal those rascals up tight.

[fishnfool73]

I pat them down with a towel then place on the pan to freeze. I have tried the brine using a few drops of menhaden oil to my ballyhoo brine to give it more scent. Only did it once so no proven results caught a few muttons though but you should have seen the oil come off those hoos.

[Baitfish]

I've read about the menhayden oil and it's on my list of variations to attempt. Since I've never done this before, I'm keeping the variables to a minimum while I try to get the process down pat.

I checked the pinfish this morning and they look really good. The vacuum packing isn't perfect, but drying and prefreezing on future batches should make the difference there.

[fishnfool73]

It takes practice .

[bolo]

Usually when I put them in ice and saltwater those gogs are frozen stiff. Like FF said, pat them dry and coat with salt and vacuum seal. Always work out for me.

[Baitfish]

I'll definately use these refinements on the next go-round.

I spotted a school of what looks like glass minnows under the bridge where I work. There's way too much trash in the water to consider a cast net. Will a minnow trap work on those guys and if so, what do they like. I've tried the trap with bread in a few places and have a flawless record of precisely 0 fish caught. Any suggestions would be helpful.

[fishnfool73]

You can catch the glass minnows in a trap but not enough to make it worth while. You would need a glass minnow cast net .

[Baitfish]

This is an example of how well the brine solution worked this weekend. I caught this pilchard about noon on Friday at Anglins. He went into a bucket with an aerator along with 15-20 of his closest friends. They were caught on sabikis and we used a small dehooker to avoid handling them. By 2pm they started dying due to the crowding and the heat. I mixed the brine and dumped them in. Added 10lbs. of ice on Saturday and mixed a new batch on Sunday. This picture was taken about 9am Monday. The brine gets cold enough to keep them semi-frozen, but not solid. These guys rode around in the back of my pickup for three HOT days and still looked good enough that I froze the rest. The pinfish I froze in mid May looked great when I tried them this weekend as well.

I think the first phase of this experiment has worked well and the next step will be menhaden oil.

[mmcauliffe]

Did my first brining today, using the OP's method (1lb of powder 2:1 pickle salt to baking soda) and around 2 gallons of seawater I got from the ocean before I went home. The color of my Gogs coming out of the brine looks outstanding, just like they came out of the ocean, but the eyes are cloudy...any suggestions for next time?

On a side note, fishing those guys out of my cooler for the pat dry part of this process.......JESUS THAT WATER IS COLD!!!!

[crashmister]

Just did some right out of the cooler they went in when they were caught. Bolck ice in a container. Like a milk jug or my latest try was 4 ziplock bags 3/4 full for expansion. they actually worked pretty good. Not a lot of fresh sea water just enough to cover the bait. Add fresh caught Gog's as you catch them. You pretty much flash freeze them in brine cause in an hour they are stiff. just bagg them up and freez them. I'll let you know how they come out as far as use is concerned when we use them. Appearance is very good and the eyes are clear.

[mmcauliffe]

Yea - I need a source for BLOCK ice....anybody??? They used to sell that sorta thing. But I know what you're saying Pat, next time I will have milk jugs frozen and ready, today I had to buy a bag of ice to add to the little frozen jugs I had.

Hey bud...thanks for the Gogs today!! I ended up with a bakers dozen, I hope to get more but at least between what you and I got, I won't show up to the boat empty handed