Freezing Fillets

It takes a long time to thaw but we use Folgers 3# coffee containers and cover with water.

I have a vacuum sealer that hasn't been used in a couple of years. I prefer the fish frozen in ice. The sealer tends to suck the moisture out of the fillet during the process. I never have mushy crappie but then, in the summertime, they always go straight to the ice chest instead of livewell. Also, I freeze no more than 10 fillets in a bag and I never use hot water for thawing. I'll put cold water in the sink and then the bag (s) of fillets. It takes an hour or so to thaw but I can usually plan ahead that far.

Something that I do and it helps a lot is not to put too many in a bag and use just enough water to cover the fillets. Then lay the bags flat in the freezer so you don't wind up with a big thick ball of frozen water/fillets.

Attachment 132731
Milk jugs! Because that's how granddaddy did it.

freeeze mine in water and ziplock bag all the time squeeze out all the air and good to go have kept fillets for a year this way still taste great. Made some the other day using recipe found on forum took fillet 1/2 slice of bacon wrapped fillet and bacon in a roll cooked on grill added barbecue sauce when bacon is cooked take off of grill simply excellent

Water filled ziplock bags if we are saving for months for a fish fry, start thawing in frig but yes does take longer.

I tried the food saver and I liked it. If you eat the fish like in a couple of months, but if longer they seem to dry out too much in the food saver bags and I just don't like that I just put them in a zip lock bag full of water and forget it. If you happen to get a little water in your food saver it will ruin the motor

I use the food saver. I like to get the fillets fairly dry with paper towels, then I try to put only 8 in a bag if possible. Its wasteful, but they store nicely and 8 is a nice number of fillets for the two of us for dinner. They thaw super quick, so there''s basically no prep time or need to plan. I've only had a few that got freezer burn after storage over a year. this year, it hasn't been a problem, as we eat em in less than a couple months.

I dont know if this would work for crappie Fillets but when we use to get lots of shad for bait we froze then but they always were hard to separate and were mushy. We started freezing them in ziplock bags with corn meal in it. The cornmeal would keep them apart and made getting them separated easier. We didn't try the eating part though.

We use ziplock bags 10 fillets to a bag.Fill with water press air out of ziplock bag add a pinch of table salt or nosalt.keeps fillets from sticking and easy to store in freezer.