Freeze dried crappie?

Just finished loading our freeze drier with about 50 fillets, and 5lbs of beans from the garden.

I haven't tried freeze drying fish before, aside from shrimp if that counts. We decided to dry them raw this time around, I usually prefer to have things cooked before drying but this will allow us to re-hydrate them and still bread/fry them like typically cooked.

Excited to see how this works out, if its as easy as other items are, its going to be a great alternative to freezing them.

I'll have to get back out for more, I'd like to have some cooked- maybe baked, to make some crappie "trail meals" for hiking trips. Our first though was baked crappie, rice and garden veggies (zucchini)? We are taking a trip to Oregon in September to hike the timberline trail, and will need 5 days of meals. Would be pretty cool to have crappie be one of the options!


If you were going to eat crappie as a "one-pot" or "bowl" meal, what would you want in it?

Gumbo! Hard to beat gumbo for being a one pot meal

My batch of crappie finished, I had a little over 2 trays total. Seems pretty neat, I'll have to try rehydrating and breading/frying to see how it does.

One things for sure, it will be easier to work with than having them in a big frozen bag all stuck together. I put some in smaller mylar bags, about 6 fillets per bag, then filled a gallon mylar bag with the rest.



Attachment 405285

Should last a long time. Jerkied crappie sushi

Never heard of freeze dried fish, let us know how it turns out.

Interesting… definitely want to see how things turn out with this experiment.[emoji106]


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I would imagine reconstituting them would render mush, but never know. I know I like FD strawberries. I know they freeze dry dead pets. Thanks for sharing and have fun on that hike.

I opened one of the small bags when I got home today and put it in a bowl of cold water. It seemed like it would rehydrate fast, but after 10 mins or so it still felt solid in the middle. I checked it again in the fridge a couple hours later and it seemed like it was probably fully rehydrated, but it’s time for bed. I’ll just let it sit overnight and try breading it for supper tomorrow.

I know cold water is slow to rehydrate, so that’s not surprising. It was cool to see the fillets seem to be holding together just like fresh ones would. It looks like I’ll be able to bread and fry them just like fresh!


This is just a pic of them dry again before I put them in water


Attachment 405344

Interesting to say the least

I want to see how they turn out, I ain’t against it if it works [emoji1362][emoji1362]


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interesting experiment , seems they would tend to freezer burn to me , that alone might keep them firm during the rehydrating process
still don't quite understand how this will help you back pack them in for several days though ?:dono

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Originally Posted by binfordw

My batch of crappie finished, I had a little over 2 trays total. Seems pretty neat, I'll have to try rehydrating and breading/frying to see how it does.

One things for sure, it will be easier to work with than having them in a big frozen bag all stuck together. I put some in smaller mylar bags, about 6 fillets per bag, then filled a gallon mylar bag with the rest.



Attachment 405285

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we freeze ours in water completely cover so no air gets to them .
we only put 4 to 6 fillets in a bag .
it takes from morning in a bowl on the counter top until dinner time for them to be exactly right sitting out at room temperature .

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Originally Posted by Ketchn

interesting experiment , seems they would tend to freezer burn to me , that alone might keep them firm during the rehydrating process
still don't quite understand how this will help you back pack them in for several days though ?:dono

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The freeze drier is a special process, using a machine.

They are only frozen during the start of the freeze drying process, so theres no freezer burn. After they are dried, there is essentially zero moisture in them, and they can be stored at room temp- provided they are sealed in an air tight container like a mylar bag or masor jar. If stored in mylar with an O2 absorber, they "should" be good for many, many years.


I could take a bag of raw fillets, but then id have to rehydrate on the trail and cook em. I'd be interested in taking them cooked as part of a meal, although it would be a neat option to cook fish on the trail too I guess.

So, yea, after the fillets are freeze dried and bagged, I could carry them in a backpack for as long as I want, and they would be ready to cook once I opened them, rehydrated (and waited for them to soak a few hours.)

Freeze drying is an interesting procedure

I fried those fillets up this evening!

I'm impressed with how well it worked!


The fillets were exactly the same texture as they would have been if fresh, after sitting in water in the fridge overnight. They breaded great, and held together just like fresh- none broke.


Attachment 405405

Attachment 405402




They tasted the same! I couldn't tell any difference. I really picked at some of it to try to see a difference, I'd have to fry some fresh along with it to make that call. It could be slightly drier maybe??, but if I didn't tell people it had been freeze dried no one would ever know. Crazy!

Attachment 405403


Now this all means I have unlimited storage space for fish fillets, and I should get back to work in the boat asap!!

Very cool.
Should work fine on the 5 day venture.
My friend starts out on his long hike(camping) trips with several frozen bottles of water in his pack.
Says that it is used for hydrogen of food and himself.
He does the trips as primitive as possible. Hope there are no bears where you will be going.
That’s a whole different story that happed to my friend and his son in Alaska.


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They rehydrated and cooked up great from the photos

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Originally Posted by Chuck Adams

Very cool.
Hope there are no bears where you will be going.

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Definitely bears, but (apparently) not grizzlies in Oregon. We hike in black bear areas often, but we use the normal cautions, we eat away from where we sleep, and hang all food and smell good things like toothpaste or chapstick away from camp. I do sometimes miss camping in Indiana, sleeping with a pocket full of nuts or a snickers to eat when I wake up lol. I could handle waking up to a coon or possum digging at my pockets a little better than being drug out of my hammock by a bear lol.

Them coons can be mean also. Had a buddy that had one in a cage. He would feed him pecans as a treat. I handed it a sugar cube. That was one mad coon when that sugar cube dissolved in that pan of water. Wouldn't want taht critter after something in my pocket

So try cooking a meal of some kind with fish in it…..and then drying that.

Really neat!
I would not have guessed that.


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