One of the easiest and cheapest cottage agric businesses you can start without stress is a catfish smoking business.
There are several catfish farmers in Nigeria today, so getting catfish to smoke is not a problem. All you need to start this business is skill and determination.
You don’t have to be a catfish farmer, you might not even have an idea of how fish grows but you can make big money smoking fish for fish farmers.
This is a business for both fish farmers and non-fish farmers.
Smoking fish can be easy if you follow some basic steps.
The four basic steps in smoking fish are :cleaning, curing, smoking and drying.
Tips on smoking catfish
The first step in your fish smoking business is to obtain some fresh fish.
If it doesn’t look FRESH or smell FRESH or feel FRESH, it probably isn’t, and it will make your finished product taste bad.
Use fresh fish.
Smoking will not hide old fish. The quality will be reflected.
Catfish harvest is categorize into two namely; melange (unit weight between 300g-600g) and table size (600g-above),the price/kg of melange is sold for N600 and above N800 and above for table size as at today.
The pocket size of your target audience will determine the type in terms of size of fish to smoke.
After harvesting (as a farmer) or purchasing (as a non farmer) your fresh catfish, put them in a container and add a reasonable amount of cooking salt and cover the container with a lid and place a heavy object on the lid to prevent the fish from getting out of the container.
Leave for about 30 minutes after which all the fish must have been dead then you can start the steps mentioned above.
CLEANING
• clean fish, removing the gills and intestine.
• Wash in clean water.
BRINE AND CURE
what is brine? Basically, brine is salt and water.
Soaking the fish in brine will achieve a few things:
• It will firm up the flesh to be less mushy.
• It will draw out any old blood, which will improve the taste.
• It will add some saltiness to the fish in the right amounts; this is desired.
• It will add some additional flavoring to the fish.
• The cure will ensure that we are protected from the deadly botulism bacteria, especially since this is a relatively low temperature cooking environment.
(Brine recipe • 1/2 gallon good clean spring water • 3/4 cup kosher salt (or plain salt, but not iodized salt)
SMOKING AND DRYING
• Prepare smoker. Too much smoke will cause the fish to taste bitter. Use just enough wood to maintain a steady smoke. There are various kinds of oven. We shall discuss that in another article.
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