This is a remunerative business when conducted on the best principles,
employing children at trifling wages. I have found the following to
be the best method: Provide a wooden trough eight feet long by a yard
wide, and eighteen inches deep; fix strips of wood an inch square along
the sides, lengthwise of the vat, and six inches above one another. On
these will rest the spits, which must be of iron wire, a yard long,
and so as just to go within the vat. Pick out all the small fish and
rubbish, and wash the bulk in salt and water, as for bloaters, but not
too many at once, as they are apt to sweat if lying long together, and
then would never be bright when smoked. Use a saturated solution of
common salt, or, preferably, of rock salt, and if you intend to produce
“bloated sprats,” two hours will be sufficient to let them remain in
pickle; run off the brine, and put the fish on the spits, which may be
a little pointed at one end. Hang them in a free current of air till
next day, and smoke them with
Oak lops 2 parts
Sawdust 2 parts
Beech or birch chips 2 parts.
until they are the colour of new sovereigns. These will not keep well
more than four or five days, and are generally esteemed. If you want
_dried_ sprats for commerce, let them remain in the brine four hours,
dry them well when on the spits, in a current of air, and when they
begin to lose their plumpness, smoke them with similar fuel till of the
colour of Spanish mahogany. These when packed in boxes, like cigar
boxes, will suit for exportation to the European Continent, where many
thousands of boxes are sent every winter.