Fishin' Big Time

[psychotic1]

You're right Charlie, we did go astray.
For those who haven't been following, this will continue a wandering conversation from 'member maps'.  Seeing as KiwiCharlie and I don't get to put our boxes on the map, and we work in the same industry, (halfway around the world from each other) we have much to discuss.

We can usually get 5 to 6 hours if we load pinks or sockeye in the freezer.  We use ammonia refrigeration run by 6v-71 motors on the compressors, with fans blowing a 30 mph wind across coils and fish.  If we load up before about 0915, we can usually be pulling frozen out around 1400-1430.  Core temp of 0oF is legal, we won't glaze till it hits -5.  Glaze sticks better.

I've heard about the brine freeze method, and we've thought/talked about it, but the conveyers would be about twice the length we've got now, and we already need a bigger plant.  We run halibut, rockfish, sablefish, salmon, urchins, sea cucumbers, and I'm going out to an island sometime next month to do herring-roe-on-kelp.  I could get 40 hrs a week all winter, plus the big-season hours if I wanted them, but I don't want them.  I haven't worked more than 8 hrs in a week since the first of the year, and I like it.  Halibut starts next week though.  We usually ship it out fresh, and guess who gets to make sure the paperwork is right for the orders...Hopefully your bar-code system will be a little more modern than ours.  The office lady who does the 'puter inventory let slip they're running DOS 1.  How'd you like to program that Jeff?

Freezers make great hiding places.  On slow mornings I can even get a little of the morning paper read.  The cold is good for those "wobbley-pop" mornings as well.  The boss can't tell, and it sure helps the headache.

Bruce

[Jeff]

I'll getcha a map I promise. Just don't know when. ;D

O.K. shamed into it a 5:00 Am. If there are some countries missing it's cause its early. ;)

[psychotic1]

Thanks Jeff.  Now I feel much better. 8) 8)

[KiwiCharlie]

G'day Bruce,

Our own thread!!  Very fancy.
I thought you must use ammonia or the like for the freezing.  Only ammonia we have on site is for the ice-machine.  Blasting is by forced air by 2 large fans and refridgerant cooled evaporators.  Usually freezing 15 racks with 39 ctns (10kg) each in the smaller blast, 3 times that in the larger blast.  18-24 hours for a -26oC blast!
I have an old 75mhz computer running Excel, to keep control of stock, thats one large speadsheet!
Theres talk of a large super factory in a couple of years (yeah heard it all before!), if it happens it will be a technological wonder (and nightmare as they sort out the teething problems!).  Most of the fish you mentioned I dont know by those names, we do snapper, trevally, gurnard, tarakihi, kingfish, red and blue cods, kahawai, ruby, moonfish and the like!  We get the bluefin tuna sometimes, big money for a nice example, straight into a wooden crate and off to Japan on the next flight.  Broadbill (swordfish) as well fetches good money.
I could not agree more on the effects of the freezers on the severest of hangover-headaches!  Its an amazing cure!  Almost straight away.  And its a great place for the cryptic crossword now and then too..... the mind comes alive!
Its blowing a gale down here this week, so its a bit quieter, although that means its gonna get real busy all of a sudden.
Cheers
Charlie.

[Corley5]

So with all the fish you guys handle do you still eat fish?  I guess if it were me I wouldn't have much of a taste for it if I was around tons of it. ;D

[KiwiCharlie]

G'day Greg,

Cant say I eat much fish, no!!  Mind you, to be fair, I never used to eat that much before.  Fish here is quite expensive in the shops.  My favourite is smoked snapper, very nice.  Once a month or so does it for me.
Come home every day stinking of fish!  Thats usually enough sensory input for one day!
Theres a big fishing competition on here this weekend, so I have guys coming in off the street looking for bait (we are wholesalers),  aarrgghh!  I do bait by the pallet load for the boats, not for guys looking for a kg of squid and pilchards!!  >:(
Cheers
Charlie Peg-on-the-Nose.

[psychotic1]

Believe it or not, I do still eat fish.  As a matter of fact, we're having a seafood dinner out at the gun club tomorrow evening.  I'm supplying the halibut, another guys bringing salmon (coho), and another is bringing shrimp.  I will admit to being quite particular about what fish I'll eat, and who put it up.  I've got 60 pounds of sockeye salmon in the freezer at work I've got to smoke up to can.  I use it like tuna. ;D
What I don't do is try to go out and catch it.  I'll be DanG'ed it I'll go and spend hours trying to hook and reel in something I see thousands of every day.  When I get a hankerin for fish, I walk over to the processing line (slime line) and say "that one" as it's coming by the graders. 8)           RHIP

Bruce

[KiwiCharlie]

G'day Jeff,

Can you do smellorama on the forum?!
Cheers
Charlie.

[psychotic1]

I think I unloaded that fish from the boat!
We had one tender who wouldn't turn his refrigeration on until he was 10 hrs away from the plant.  Then he'd pour in a couple of gallons of chlorox bleach to hide the smell.  Talk about a bad job to do hung over. :(
Seen people puke after the first pump load.

Bruce

[KiwiCharlie]

G'day Bruce,

Aint it fun when you can go to a bar-b-que or dinner party with the biggest fish theyve ever seen!!  Never fails to make me laugh, I see em all day long but most people dont.  Big hapuka (bass) steaks always go down well.
When I get any fish, I too am picky.  Choose it from the chiller myself, give it to one of the knifehands and watch as he does the biz!  Suppose people think were spoilt for choice, and I guess we are!  Nothing like real fresh etc.
Got a big swordfish head, for the head table at a wedding once.  People just dont see that sort of thing.
Did you say gun club, I feel another thread coming on here!  At the mo I only got one, a Rem .308 Stainless Fluted Varmint w a 3.5-10x Leupold stacked on top.  Now, where'd I put my Ghillie suit......
Cheers
Charlie.

[KiwiCharlie]

G'day Bruce,

By pump load, do you mean you unload up one of those "screw in a pipe" methods straight from a slurry tank??
All the fish we unload are in bays under deck with ice all through it and they are manually "picked" with a spike (ikijema) into bins by species, then lifted out 6 or so at a time by a winch in the unloading truck directly above on the wharf.
Cheers
Charlie.

[psychotic1]

Mine start at .223 and end up around 12 gauge.  Everytime the gov'ment tells me I shouldn't have one, I go get it.
This particular function is the regular Wednesday evening potluck dinner for the trap shooters.  I don't shoot trap (clay pigeons), but my buddy Ivan does.  I go along for the socializing.  And we eat real well on Wed. nights.  I'm everybodies freing when I bring out a 10 pound bag of halibut cheeks.  (yes, I said cheeks)  A 300 pound halibut has a cheek big enough to look like a steak.  And it's more flaky than any roast you ever saw.

Bruce

[KiwiCharlie]

G'day Bruce,

When I need to impress, its Broadbill (swordfish) loin steaks!
Talk about tender...
By the by, canning your own food?  Now thats something that we never do down here!
Cheers
Charlie.

[psychotic1]

You don't can food?  I would think it would be a great way to preserve it for the bush.  I actually use glass jars, which can be fragile, but that's why I repack them in the box they came in.
I've got jars of salmon and deer that I've had for two or three years, and they're just as good now as the day I canned them.  I just wish I could grow a vegetable garden like I had in Iowa.  I'd be a cannin' fool.

Bruce

[Tillaway]

Hmmm.. Bruce, I'll take a bag of those cheeks. mmmm 8) :D

[psychotic1]

We've got a fish pump.  Great big cylinder with a diaphragm  in the middle.  We use a 3-71 diesel to power hydraulics to move the diaphragm back and forth to suck the fish out of the boat hold and into the plant onto a 4 foot wide belt.  There the "pump graders" can sort through the 3-4,ooo pounds and seperate out the species and the darks from the brights.  
When everything is going good, and there's pretty much only one type of fish, we can unload 30 to 40,000 pounds an hour.  I'll see if I can get a picture.  I have to go talk to the bosses about what job they want me to do this summer.  Then I tell them what I want to do- then they give me more time to think about it.

bruce