Salting, drying and smoking of tilapia from Volta Lake, Ghana.

Abstract

The effects of dressing methods, brining time, open-air drying time, smoking tempera-tures and storage time on the quality of salted, smoked and dried Tilapia galilae from Volta Lake were investigated. The data led us to establish an improved method of preparing dried fish acceptable to Ghanaians. The method includes scaling, dressing in split-open form, thorough cleansing and washing, brining in a saturated brine to give a finished product containing about 10% salt on a wet basis and a water content of 40 to 45%, open-air drying before smoking down to 75 to 80% yield, and warm smoking at 40 to 60°C (down to 40% yield) followed by open-air drying. The whole process at Volta Lake was completed in 24 to 36 hr during the dry season and 30 to 70 hr during the rainy season. The larger the fish the longer the processing time. The products prepared by this method proved to have an organoleptic quality superior to the locally dried fish and remained in good condition for at least a month when stored in polythene bags (gauge 400).