FACTORY EXPERIMENTS IN CURING. 



29 



thoroughly than did the cakes, the moisture content being from 40 to 

 41 per cent. The effect of the humidity on these fish was very no- 

 ticeable. Those pickled with high-grade salt remained dry, while 

 those pickled in the sea salt became very wet and the surface was 

 covered with a film of moisture. 



One set of four cakes from each lot was given a second drying, 

 which resulted in a reduction in weight amounting to about 10 per 

 cent. The attempt was made to duplicate the Nova Scotia style cure, 

 but the pieces were so small that the appearance of the product was 

 injured and the real drying was carried a little too far. The tablets 

 which were once dried remained so when cured with the refined salt, 

 but those prepared with the Trapani and Iviza salt took up consid- 

 erable moisture on damp days and were slow in losing it. The spoil- 

 age at the end of seventy-five days showed 80 per cent more reddening 

 for the Trapani and Iviza salt and 60 per cent more mold or freckling 

 than in the case of the refined salts. This experiment, as well as 

 that with the whole fish, would indicate that sufficient drying and 

 retention of that dryness under varying weather conditions will assist 

 in preventing spoilage. In these experiments the occurrence of the 

 brown mold was frequently observed. This was rarely mentioned at 

 the factory, but when spoilage was not due to redness the mold took 

 its place. 



As a check against these experiments, six cakes of regular pickled 

 fish and six cakes of fish treated with sodium benzoate were obtained 

 from seven of the prominent fish packers and kept under the same 

 conditions as the experimental lots. On opening the untreated lots, 

 65 per cent were found to have started spoilage in thirty days and 

 85 per cent in forty-five days. Of the fish treated with sodium benzo- 

 ate, 12 or 13 per cent showed reddening or mold at the end of forty- 

 five days, but no subsequent change was observed. The moisture con- 

 tents of the benzoated and non-benzoated fish were the same. 



Variations in commercial //*// due to season, xti/lc <tf pack, etc. 



