Tips For Preserving Fish Freshness

Step by step guide on how to use Shinkeijime Fish Spike

The Shinkeijime Fish Spike will allow you to preserve the freshness of your fish, and you’ll be able to become a master of freshness with this step by step guide!

Before we begin, we recommend wearing thick gloves to prevent the live fish from getting exposed to hand heat for maximum effectiveness

Step 1: Prepare A Stable Surface

Place the fish on a sponge mat to prevent it from flailing. If it starts moving excessively 3 things will happen:

1. ATP will be exhausted very quickly

2. pH of fish meat will drop and fish will become more acidic

3. Fish will overheat and meat will get bruised

Step 2: Bleed By Cutting The Gills

Open one of the gills and sever the blood vessel of the gill. Even after cutting the vessel, the fish’s heart is still beating and will allow for smooth bleeding. At this time however, the spinal cord is still properly functioning and causing the fish to further consume ATP

Step 3: Pierce Through Nerve Canal

In this step, we will be using the Shinkeijime to pierce through the fish’s forehead and aim for the spinal cord.

First use the tube to penetrate the skull between the fish’s eyes. Then proceed to insert the wire through the tube and into the spinal cord. Push and wiggle the wire toward the tail to completely destroy the spinal cord.

By destroying the spinal cord, you prevent electrical impulses to the fish’s muscles post-mort. These impulses cause remaining blood to seep into the muscle tissue, ruining the transparency of the meat and increasing the fishy odor.

If you have trouble locating the spinal cord in this step, we recommend to try cutting the fish’s tail and finding the spinal cord directly from there until you become more used to it.

Step 4: Chill The Fish

After death, biochemical reaction progressions in the body will damage the fish meat in a few minutes. To stop these reactions, put the fish in iced seawater immediately for 5-10 minutes to chill the body. After chilling, store the fish at 0 –5 degrees Celsius to preserve the fish’s “umami.”

For a full demonstration, check out our video on how to properly use the Shinkeijime Fish Spike