12 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
they are to becanned. Warming the fish in the drier hastens bacterial 
and autolytic activities, which probably continue at a greater rate 
than it does in fish that have not been warmed, although the warmed 
fish may soon return to the temperature they had before being dried. 
It was necessary to find out how well the fish keep over night, 
because the packing of prepared fish into cans is usually done by 
women who work only in the daytime. In southern California, for 
instance, the fish usually arrive at the canneries between midnight 
and 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning. The fish are unloaded, cut, and 
brined as soon as possible. Under ordinary conditions fish to be 
packed raw could be prepared and be ready for packing early in the 
morning, and a steady supply furnished throughout the day. There 
are times, however, when fish arrive late in the day or early in the 
evening. These fish must be preserved until the next day before 
they can be packed. If they are fresh and if they are cut and brined 
sufficiently, both the experiments and general experience by the 
canners show that they keep well over night, or even longer, in the 
brine tanks. The air temperature at night on the coast of southern 
California in winter, when sardines are canned, seldom goes above 
60° and may drop as low as 32°. Should higher temperatures prevail 
or the fish be in poor condition a layer of cracked ice on a tank of 
brined fish would aid greatly in keeping them. Conditions for keeping 
fish in Monterey are excellent. A supply of clean, cold, sea water is 
always available, and if run over the fish in tanks keeps them in 
excellent condition for from 24 to 48 hours. 
Experiments upon the preparation of fish for the quarter-oil pack 
were limited inextent. Itis evident, however, that agood pack can be 
obtained by preparing small fish in the same general way as large 
fish for the pound-oval pack, except considerably more water (20 to 
30 per cent) must be removed from the small fish. This can be done 
by drying, but, except in the case of very small fish, it is a slow 
process, just as it is a slow process to remove less water from large 
fish. 
One difficulty was met with raw-packed fish in oil that is not 
encountered with fish that have been cooked. Some of the packs 
(not all) when opened contained small masses of what apparently 
was coagulated protein. This detracted somewhat from the appear- 
ance of the product. It seemed that this substance was present only 
when the fish were not real fresh or had softened considerably during 
their preparation for canning. This coagulable substance undoubt- 
edly drains during cooking from fish that are cooked before being 
canned. It was not noticed, however, in the tomato-sauce packs, 
probably because its presence was hidden by the red sauce. 
PROCEDURE RECOMMENDED 
Pound-oval sized fish, to be canned raw with tomato sauce, should 
be ‘‘cut”’ and then brined in a saturated salt solution as long as 
possible (about two to three hours) without making the final product 
too salty when packed in a very lightly salted or unsalted tomato 
sauce. 
The brined fish next should be dried with air having an average 
temperature of 95° to 115° and a velocity of 1,000 feet, or more, 
per minute (preferably 1,500 to 2,000) for two to three hours, The 
