Taylor. — Preservation of Fish by Salt 



139 



being cut open, scraped and washed before the salt is applied. 

 By what criteria can we judge the merits of these various 

 methods? The best way to answer this question is : Other con- 

 ditions being held constant, which method or methods of clean- 

 ing result in least decomposition during the salting process? 

 A series of trials was made by cleaning the fish by the va- 

 rious methods and salting them by the same process and deter- 

 mining the amounts of amino acid nitrogen developed. Two 

 sets complete were tried, one consisting of one sample each 

 cleaned by the various methods and held at a temperature of 

 79° F. during the salting process; another set similar to the 

 preceding but held at 80° F. during the salting process. Both 

 temperatures are high for salting fish, and the test is correspond- 

 ingly severe. The results are shown in the following table 

 which is abbreviated from the paper by Tressler : 



Development of Amino Acid Nitrogen in Fish Cleaned in Various 



Ways 



[Fish salted 4 hours after capture, with Diamond Flake Salt, containing 

 99.78 per cent sodium chloride; salting period 9 days] 



Method of cleaning 



No cleaning, salted round 



Pipped 



Head cut oflf, abdominal 

 cavity split open, viscera, 

 €xcept milt and roe, re- 

 moved 



Cleaned perfectly, milt and 

 roe removed, kidney and 

 and membranes scraped 

 and all blood washed out 



No cleaning, salted round 



Pipped 



Head cut oflf, abdominal 

 cavity split open, viscera, 

 except milt and roe, re- 

 moved 



Cleaned perfectly, milt and 

 roe removed, kidney and 

 and membranes scraped 

 and all blood washed out 



Average 

 tempera- 

 ture of 

 salting 



79 

 79 



79 



79 

 88 

 88 



88 



88 



Amino acid 



nitrogen 

 formed dur- 

 ing salting 

 period per 



kilo of 

 fresh fish 



Grams 



0.77 



.63 



.68 



.37 



1.12 



.76 



.82 



.47 



Condition of fish at end 

 of period 



Badly spoiled, bloated 

 Spoiled 



Spoiled 



Excellent condition 

 Badly spoiled, bloated 

 Badly spoiled 



Badly spoiled 



Excellent condition 



