Making my own Fish Sauce

toufas

Hello, I want to make fish sauce for the place that I work at.

I have ample access to fish guts. How can I go into doing that?

Also, can the fish guts be frozen before hand or it defeats the purpose?

Thank you

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matthewmicahhall

I would recommend starting with the work of Sally Grainger out of the UK -- see here for an example. She has done a great deal of historical research and real life experimentation on various fish sauces using blood, viscera, and/or muscle.

As for freezing the guts, I can point you to this abstract. TL;DR -- it looks like freezing is fine. I'm assuming that the freezing process preserves the enzymes in the guts that help break down proteins during the conversion to fish sauce.

Good luck -- let us know how it turns out!

fisher23

I have not even thought about making my own, but I have been to a couple of the factories in Thailand. Here is a website that describes the process, the ingredients are whole anchovies, salt (27%) and a touch of sugar (1%) when it's bottled. The process takes two years in the fermentation tank.

tangma27

Let us know what you figure out!

Minh_Huynh_48807

We visited a fish sauce factory in Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam. It takes about 2 years to get it done and the ingredients are basically fish and salt but you need a lot of it. I grew up eating it (from Vietnam) and do find the smell very strong (at the factory) so before attempting it, something to consider. Here a few pictures of the traditional way we do it back in VN.

Good luck. Cheers!

toufas

Would sous vide help in making this? There is not a lot of sun going around in London, and here: http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/garum.htm they suggest using a yogurt maker (garum is ok for what we want/we want out own pla ra. I remember at bo.lan they had a half gastro with the lid on resting on top of the oven.

toufas

Some updates:

2 batches are ok, but have been in a really warm place and they have been cooked. Nevertheless I am still keeping them, in a bit milder place. Smell is not unpleasant

1 batch has been straight in that milder place, and it smells like I would expect it to smell. But there is some mold. Did i destroy it? Should I throw it away?