How long will whole frozen fish be ok to thaw out and fillet?
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How long will whole frozen fish be ok to thaw out and fillet?
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Depends on how you froze them. If they are packed in water and then frozen, they'll keep indefinitely. I also freeze my fillets in a little salt water to cover them. The salt water freezes harder and at a colder temp than regular water and keeps freezer burn off them. Ate a batch this last week from '15 and they tasted like I caught them yesterday!
They are in water in freezer bags.
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Caught a few a while back and something came up and I didn’t get to fillet them. So I did that. Was thinking about thawing and cooking them tonight but have heard whole fish won’t last long. I think it was around the 1st of April.
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They would be good from December, but not from 3 years ago
I've never really frozen whole fish for filleting at a later date although (occasionally) I have stored them on well drained ice for up to two days before filleting. But, as for fillets... I've always frozen mine in salt water in freezer bags... but I still make it a point to label them by date and rotate the cooking dates... cooking older ones first much like the grocery store rotates stock moving the older merchandise to the front to keep everything fresh and moving as it is sold or in the case of fillets... used. About six months is the preferred amount of time that I personally like to keep filleted fish frozen although I have and will probably go longer than that from time to time.
Not sure about whole fish but fillets are good for years. If frozen in water like Bob said. I've eaten them 3ys old before and they tasted fine. I remember my grandmother cooking whole fish - the heads and guts that where frozen for a year or so.
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I've never frozen a fish whole. I have left them under ice in a cooler for 3 days, then cleaned them. I think earlier in the year I even left some on ice for 5 days, but it wasn't hot then. That was pushing it even with it cool. When kept on ice, as long as their eyes aren't cloudy, they're still good.
You can also freeze them without water. Just wrap the bag in 4 or 5 pieces of news paper and they wont get the burn either. It also saves space in the freezer.