SSSF Egg Curing Tutorial - Pics Video
SSSF Official Egg Curing Tutorial
Tutorial by Matthew Clark, Small Stream Salmon Fishing
This egg curing tutorial can help you learn to cure your eggs using a generic method based on store bought cures. Never waste another skein! This tutorial is an efficient way to get the job done with little to no mess and will produce bright colorful fish catching eggs every time. I will be working with 10 fresh chinook skeins for this project, about 9 packed quart jars. I will be using salmon egg cure from ©Cure-All brand and one other really well known brand. In the interest of not having all of our apples in one basket, I make sure to put up at least 2 different cures when working with larger loads. I will be using a deep Kenai Red cure color, so we can see the color change as the process takes place. I can not confirm that all cures on the market will work or respond exactly the same as the 2 cures I am using in this tutorial. Most cures will have directions printed on the container that might suggest a different curing method required. Custom egg cures will not be covered in this generic tutorial but we will however cover the addition of scents and at what point in this curing process they are to be added to the eggs.
Getting Started
Set up a folding table outside or in a well ventilated area for a curing workspace. Avoid breathing cure dust, read warning labels on egg cure jar before using. You may wish to put down a layer of plastic or a plastic lawn bag to work over until your skeins are ready for curing. The first step will be remove all blood and clean the skeins with a spoon and a paper towel. The second step will be to butterfly or split the skeins in preparation for curing.
We are curing our eggs in an outdoor or well ventilated area for mess control and safety reasons. The cure dust is very fine and should not be in your work area. If you must work indoors open your windows and use a generic hospital mask to keep the cure dust out of your airways.
Materials List
Items you will need to get startedEgg Preparation
- Large table such as folding table or ping pong table for larger cures
- Gloves, nytrile or latex to protect you from the powerful color die and keep eggs human scent free
- Zip Lock bags AND large tubs [1 per color each]for the curing process
- Scissors, washed in bleach or lemon joy, also wash tubs below
- Spoon, to aid in removing blood from skeins
- Paper towels AND newspaper, to prevent mess and for drying
- Egg cure, available at a small local tackle shop near you or through xtreme Northwest Bait Co. Cure-All brand
- Empty egg cure bottle, for mixing your colors
- Canning Jars, 1 case, pint jars are fine or quart jars for larger loads
- Jar labels AND marker pen, to keep your jars organized
Starting with your fishing trip. Do not rinse your eggs in water prior to curing. Place your removed eggs in a zip lock type bag until to you get home. If possible wipe the blood from the eggs with a paper towel and place an additional folded paper towel in the bag with the eggs. Eggs stored this way will hold overnight and remain stable.
Once you arrive at home it is best to clean any additional blood out of the eggs. Use a spoon to push the blood from the skeins main vein. Use a paper towel to catch the blood as it drains out the cut end. Once all blood is removed, re-pack the eggs in bags with a clean folded paper towel and store overnight or until you have time to cure. Eggs must be cured within 48 hours of harvest for best results.
These eggs are now 12 hours old, drained of all blood and are ready to be butterfly cut!
Butterfly the Eggs
Refer to video clip 'Offset Butterfly Cut' Northwest Fishing Mastery series
In order to get the cure into the center of the eggs we need to 'butterfly' the skeins open so they can lay "more" flat. Be careful about what this means. Take a look at the structure of each skein and try to determine where the best cut is. You should avoid just cutting through the center of each skein as a habit because each skein is a bit different. The way I do this is I cut down the folded envelope side so I can leave the full pages, or fans of eggs that go from side to side on each skein fully intact. If you cut down the dead center mark of your skein you split these fans or pages in half for no reason while weakening the structural quality of the bait. Many skeins require little or no cutting at all, needing only a small trim on one side to make the pages of eggs unfold correctly. They only need to be open enough to work the cure in between these pages of eggs. You can also cut the length of the skein in half at this point to make for easier handling and curing.
These eggs have been opened with an offset 'butterfly' cut. I used a tall kitchen garbage bag under the eggs because of how many needed to be split. This kept the eggs from sticking to the paper towels. Small skeins can be cut in one of the larger tubs you have for curing.
Applying Cure to the Eggs
Refer to video clip 'Applying Cure' Northwest Fishing Mastery series
Now that we have the eggs open flat we are ready to Apply the cure. If you have not already, cut the skein in half as described in video clip for easier handling. You can do this by hand or you can lay them in the curing tub. Apply a light coat of cure to the eggs working from one end of the skein to the other, making sure to open each folded area and apply a small amount cure. A light amount of cure is all that is needed. The trick is lightly working the cure down into the eggs. I like to lay the skein over my hand and roll the skein from one end to the other while sprinkling the cure into the folds in an even manner. A little practice and you will learn to get a light even coat.
Next turn the skein over and add a light coat of cure to the back or membrane side of the skein. This will work through the membrane and cure the hard to reach areas.
Now place your eggs in the curing tub or a gallon zip lock type bag as shown. Let the eggs sit for 30 to 60 minutes. Rotate them around at least once during the curing process to be certain all the eggs have been cured. Some areas may not show cure after 1 hour, this is ok, they will cure during the second part of our process yet to come.
Drain & Dry the Eggs
Now that the eggs have been soaking in cure for 30 to 60 minutes we can drain off all of the cure juices. Place the eggs in the plastic collander and allow to drain for 5 to 10 minutes. Rotate the eggs at least one time during draining process. You will not need to save this dark dirty run off cure juice. Properly discard, we will not be using this juice for anything. We are going to use cured egg necture from inside our skeins to re-hydrate our baits after drying.
At this time the eggs COULD be put back in a bag or container and placed in the fridge overnight for at least 12 hours. They will plump up a bit and this would make them ready for fishing or freezing but they would be very wet and possibly hard to work with. Many cure and bait companies that sell cured roe will stop at this point and package the eggs for deep freeze and then sell. Many believe that eggs put up in this manner become somewhat more workable after freezing one time......
.......BUT WAIT!...
The Double Curing Process
I believe it is better to continue on with a sort of double cure process. This is why I dry my eggs on paper towel and do a double cure process at this point to firm them up. The double cure process will finish the bait correctly so that the eggs are plump and firm with maximized color and are more comfortable to fish. The results you see will impress you by taking the extra time to continue on from this point.
Continuing Onward to A Better Roe
While your eggs are in the collander draining, cover you folding table with several layers of newspaper followed by several layers of paper towels. The newspaper acts to absorb the mess while the paper towels help keep the newspaper ink off the bait. The runoff will drain through the paper towels into the newspaper until dry. Do not do ANY cutting yet, leave the skeins intact. Place the skeins on the paper towels about 1 inch apart and allow to dry in an open are for 6 to 12 hours. Some anglers use metal screens built on a wood frame to lay out and dry their eggs. This can also shorten drying time by several hours if applicable.
Our project bait was very thick and required 13 hours of overall drying time.
What are we looking for in our drying roe?
Good question because this is what tells us when its time to make cuts and jar the eggs for the double curing process.
Drying time will always be a variable since the eggs skeins can be larger or smaller. Other variables such as humidity or room temp can also factor into drying time. I have let chinook eggs dry for up to 18 hours to get the desired effect.
Be very careful not to over dry your skeins, they should only have a light glaze on the surface and be slightly damp and tacky to the touch. Small skeins will dry very fast so keep an eye on them at all times!
We want the eggs to dry on the outside layer until it shows a sort of light glazed tacky drying look and feel. A few of the eggs will look crumbled and dry but the eggs protected inside the folds will be moist or wet still to the touch. We want to dry the front and back of the eggs but NOT the inside...We will also need to flip the skeins over one time for several hours to dry the membrane side during this period of drying. This will firm up the entire skein for a more stable bait. we will be rehydrating the skeins again later in jars during the double curing part of this process.
The Perfect Finish
The skeins are now dry and tacky to the touch, we are ready to cut and jar them. For this chinook salmon roe I am going to use quart size wide mouth mason canning jars. For coho and steelhead roe, I recommend pint size wide mouth mason canning jars.
We are cutting the skeins now to release a limited and controlled amount of cured egg necter back into the jar. This cured egg nectar will act as a curing agent that will finish our curing and coloring as well as perfectly rehydrate the few dry and crumbled eggs. We will end up with a firm but wet and managable bait that fishes great, even when fished with a heavy float system or repeated drift fishing casts.
Adding Scents
This is also the time to add any powder scents you may have such as krill, garlic or slamola powder. The powder scents will mix with the egg nectar and be drawn back into the eggs as rehydration and the double curing process occur. Liquid and gel type scents are most often added to the baits the night before use as not to affect the curing or freezing process any. Apply the powder scent with a very light sprinkle on the skeins just before cutting begins. If skeins begin to juice after scent is applied [occurs with slamola] allow 1 additional hour of drying time before cutting.
Jarring & Cutting the Eggs
DO NOT CUT YOUR EGGS INTO BAIT SIZE PIECES unless you enjoy mush on the water on cold days. This practice should be reserved for when you are doing a borax based cure.
Put on your gloves again and now cut the skeins crossways into chunks about the width of the jar you are loading. If you have smaller long thing skeins, cut them a little long and fold them. We are cutting these to rehydrate the dry eggs but we do not want to make to many cuts and flood the jar out with juices. You will not see the juice build up as you load the jar, just continue cutting and loading until the jar is fully packed, leaving only enough room for the eggs to expand as they plump back to life. Clean the jar rims and then close the jars tight with the included canning rings and lids. Label them with a description of what type of roe, the date and what cure was used. Sharpie marker in black will not fade.
Place the jars in your fridge, do not freeze yet. Now you should see juice starting to pile up in the bottom half of the jar. This is the egg nectar we released by cutting the skeins. This is a good thing! Next we are going to flip these jars over about every 6 to 12 hours for the next 2 days. You can see the nectar start to disappear back into the eggs as the eggs begin to 'plump up' or 'pop' during this period. This is like popcorn, ask anyone who knows egg curing and they will tell you the eggs "POP" during this part of the curing process. At this same time any uncured portions of the eggs will finish and color. Your double curing process will now take place using only the natural cured egg nectar from inside the eggs, not the dirty dark cure juice run off you drained away in the collander. In 48 hours you are going to have the best looking egg you have ever seen in your hands!
After most of the juice is gone, 2 or 3 days later, the eggs seem to be big and plump. There will be no "juice" in the jar, only thick rich colorful nectar gel that will milk like crazy for several casts because of how thick it has become after working the entire process correctly. Be sure to flip the jar over a few times while they thaw for fishing in the coming season, they can actually cure a little for a third time then. You will be amazed at the clean and natural results you get. Your jars are packed, plumped, labeled and ready to be frozen! Congratulations, now you have the eggs you have always hoped for!
Quart Jars packed with fresh roe! Ready for the freezer...
TipsCures Known To Work Using This Method
- Notice the empty cure container in the 2nd photo? Try mixing colors of the same cure together for an all new shade that only you might have!
- Use only a light amount of cure on the front and back of skein, do not cover with a thick or heavy coating.
- Small skeins will dry very fast, 2 to 6 hours, always keep an eye on them!
- Do not cut your eggs into quarter size baits before jarring, this practice is reserved for borax based cures.
- When jarring the eggs, do not make to many cuts, although we are rehydrating the eggs with nectar we do not want to flood the jar.
- The eggs will 'plump up' or 'pop' after rehydration, you will see this take place. Then they are ready to freeze.
Please let us know if you find another brand of cure that works using this tutorial, thank you.
- Cure-All Brand Instant Sulfite
- Pro-Glo
- Pro-Cure
Small Stream Salmon Fishing would like to thank Eric & Kim Masog, Xtreme Northwest Bait Co. for the most excellent Kenai Red ©Cure-All Brand Instant Sulfite Egg Cure used in this tutorial. I am very happy to be working with Cure-All. The Kenai Red is a stunning to look at finish!
We have also shown this same method in our popular SSSF video "Dragons Fire Egg Curing" produced in 2006 as one of Small Stream Salmon Fishing's first educational fishing videos.
Small Stream Salmon Fishing ©2009 SSSF Official Egg Curing Tutorial
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Agreed...
Originally Posted by GW
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