Fish Sauce: My First Batch

Just last week I strained my first gallon of salted herring guts and heads into garum.
I'm very pleased with the results. My brother pushed me to do this, and at first I dragged my feet, but it tastes really nice, and it mitigates any guilt you may feel about wasting salmon or herring.
Next up I have a gallon of mackerel, herring, and salmon from last summer.

From here on, I am going to separate them out by species so I know exactly how they all taste. So far my brother and I know that salmon garum tastes the best.
And for anyone hesitant to do this because of the smell - there is no smell! As long as you add enough salt it doesn't rot and therefore doesn't smell.

With a food scale you can easily calculate 15 - 20% salt by weight. Just mash up the fish parts, put them in a gallon jar, pour in the salt, then stir thoroughly.
When you strain it after 6 months, use 4 clean cotton towels placed in a collander, and pour the fish mash into it. It will slowly drip through and after a day or two or three you will have nearly half a gallon of homemade fish sauce!

Remember, you want the stomach to go in to the jar as the gut enzymes help break down the fish (or something like that). If your salmon has anchovies or squid in its stomach, even better! More flavor.
Enjoy! -Andrew

Thats good stuff, its called Patis in Filipino a staple is most households.

I wonder how halibut, rockfish, and lingcod would work. Somehow I'm more geared towards oily fish like anchovies, herring, mackerel, and salmon.
My brother and I did a batch of scallop garum a while back. We harvested the meat of course, but the guts and lips went into the salt jar.

Wow !  Nice job.

I was inspired to try this.  Have a jar of herring guts/heads sitting in a cupboard but it's not the warmest place, thinking about putting it in my bread proofer to speed things up a bit.  I read some recipes that kept it at a high temp for shorter amount of time.

The few times I've opened it I'm surprised at how good it smells.

Oh man that looks good! I never thought to make my own fish sauce before.... I am definitely going to try this out!!

Looks good but I bet my wife would never eat fish sauce again if she saw me making it!

Have you tried squid? I remember seeing a show (i think it was Bizarre Foods) where the host visited a Kim chi, then fish sauce factory in Thailand. If I remember correctly, the prized stuff was the squid sauce.

That's Awesome Mann! I never thought of making my own fishsauce! Something to think about doing soon! Thanks for sharing Malibu_Two.

I'm going to do this with every salmon I catch all summer. Heads, guts, and gills with salt. I'll be bathing in fish sauce by next year!

This is really amazing. Fascinating what salt and time and enzymes can do! But....I admit it fills me fear a little bit, thinking of salmon guts in a jar for months! But I will try this. So you don’t need to add any water or additional spices? And do you keep it in a dark place? And do you put all of that in one jar or mash it up, add salt, and divide into smaller jars? Thanks!

It's so cool that people are interested in this. No, don't add any water! The salt will break down the fish and the liquid will separate from the heads, guts, and carcasses.
And it really doesn't smell, as long as you add ~20% salt by weight. Even when you open the jar, there is only the slightest "baity" smell when you put your nose into the jar. Nothing like a rotting salmon on a river bank.

With herring I mix them all up in a bowl and knead it around with my hands to make sure the salt gets spread evenly, and then drop everything into a gallon jar. When the jar is full, start your 6-month count down from the last time you added fresh fish to it. Every so often I open the jar to make sure it isn't rotting, and I like to shake the jar to mix it up.

With bigger fish like salmon, you might want to chop the heads into smaller chunks to ensure everything gets saturated with salt. I suppose if you wanted to dedicate a blender to the cause, blending everything would give the process a jump start.

I haven't tried halibut, rockfish, or lingcod. Somehow I don't think less oily fish would work as well. I think albacore would be amazing. Squid, too, though I haven't tried that yet either.

Thanks!

Omg my wife would kill me if she knew that I blended salmon guts and heads in her blender. Good thing she won’t find out 

Is this in a closed jar? If so, I would imagine getting the salt ratio correct is pretty crucial to prevent botulism.

Any particular salt you use, sea salt, morton?