I pickle fish pretty often, mainly salmon, but if I can find salt herring, I pickle that too. Grandpa was from Sweden, so I use the old family recipe, which none of yalls are gonna get
However...
In order to pickle fish, you must salt it first. Salting fish was how they preserved it before.the days of refrigeration, and pickling was one of the many ways to make something inedible, tolerable enough to consume, as eating straight salt fish is toxic.
I use a water softener salt, it's cheap, and you can get it at a farm supply store.
Get a clean plastic tub and pour in an inch or two of salt, then a layer of fish, skin up, then another inch or two of salt, then fish, skin up, then more salt, more fish, and just repeat till you run out of fish, but you want to use more salt that fish, put the lid on it, and let it sit a couple weeks, un-refrigerated is fine 2-3 weeks works for me. .
A few weeks later, dig out the fish and skin it, then cube it, and let it sit in a bucket of cold water for 1-2 hours to pull the salt back out, then you are ready to make up your pickling solution, I usually use cloves allspice, spices common in Sweden, bay leaves, red and white onions, wine, sugar, a good quality organic white vinegar from a hippy store I go to, a high quality organic vinegar is key... let it sit another 3 weeks and it's good to go, it's a process, but I learned how to do it the old country way, start to finish, it takes almost a month and a half
I got 60lbs of coho in my freezer from hatchery left overs and I'm gonna be doing a batch pretty soon if you have any questions
