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What am i doing wrong with my boilies?

Jamie Armitage

Jamie Armitage

Senior Member
I make my boilies put them on a clean dry tea towel leave over night to dry.
In the morning put them in a clean dry freezer bag and put them in the deep freezer.
But what i find is they get discoloured! due to water/frost??
Can anybody tell me what i am doing wrong???

cheers for any help

jamie
 
i,d be quite interested in these replies as well as when i have moulded every boilie by hand and boiled them they lose alot of there colour, the smell is still really good just a much lighter colour.
cheers
jerry
 
Boys, all boilies lose a little of their colour in the boiling process but as long as you are putting the colourant in at the 'Liquids' part of the process, at the correct levels, and provided they are thoroughly mixed, ensuring an even distribution of the colour/flavours throughout the mix you should still retain a good coulour after boiling.

Another question, are you sealing the bags correctly? Ineffective seals will lead to frost burn which can also affect colour!

If as much air as possible is removed from the bags and they are properly sealed before freezing the colour should be retained!

Jerry, you have however made a very good point! Flavour!!

If you are retaining a good flavour/food signal I think this is the most important aspect of your chosen bait and therefore it should catch anyway!

Colour in my opinion is not that important!

Hope this helps??

Keith
 
Jerry and keith
There are ok after boiling and drying them out. Its after i pull them out the freezer they have water or frost damage?
Patches of white or lighter spots??

Jerry i add a little of food colouring to keep the colours rich and dark. You roll them by hand? must take long time fella...


cheers jamie
 
Jamie Armitage said:
Jerry and keith
There are ok after boiling and drying them out. Its after i pull them out the freezer they have water or frost damage?
Patches of white or lighter spots??

Jerry i add a little of food colouring to keep the colours rich and dark. You roll them by hand? must take long time fella...


cheers jamie
Click to expand...

i dont add colouring to mine only because there a really nice dark brown colour and they do lose a bit of colour but the flavour is as good before boiling, i,ve never had any trouble when freezing them, what i tend to do when ive boiled them is put them all on the towel and fold the towel over and i only leave for an hr then switch to a new towel (my wife really appreciates this lol) leave for a further hr or so then i wrap all the ones that are being frozen in clingfilm then bag them, never had any frost or freeze burns this way.
i do have a boilie board jamie but it just doesnt work for me, last attempt it got launched in the garden, usually takes me a bout 3hrs to roll a few hundred boilies, have to be in the mood for it though lol
to be honest i,ve not used my homemade boilies for a couple of months and i cant say my catch rate is better when i do use them but it does give you a lot of enjoyment knowing you have caught on something you have made yourself
cheers
jerry
 
I used to make a lot of my own boilies and kept my hookers preserved in a tub of fish oils and my chuckers in the freezer as you describe - never got too hung up about the freezer burns as they were going to be loose fed....

tend to buy ready mades these days as they are easier all round, I still store a selection as hookers in oills though.

Paul
 
Nick - exactly as I would have written too. I let mine steam off on 2-3 kitchen tissue towels (certainly not an aromatically conditioned tea towel) rolling around & after 10 mins place on a clean tissue towels.

Cheers, Jon
 
Try coating them in a food oil whilst still hot and then leave to cool. this helps with the freezing process and minimizes the burn. (low temp oil like cod liver is good for the cooler months (i.e. not June to August!)

This stops some of the moisture and flavours being drawn out when the liquid in the boilie crystallizes. The only way to cure this particular problem is with industrial chillers though so don't sweat it, it's just what happens to all foods containing water when slow frozen (instead of blast chilled) in a domestic freezer.
 
As has been said, many/most home frozen baits suffer from this problem, and there is nothing you can do during the drying/bagging process that will effect things. It seems to get worse after bait has been frozen for an especially long time. A bag that has been opened a time or two as boilies are taken from it is even more prone to this

You should see ice crystals like snow somewhere in the bag, and this is the water frozen out of the bait. During the thawing out process, this will melt and be re-absobed into the boilies, and that way they suffer no serious ill effects. It is important to allow this to happen, as there is often flavour in this ice, and giving the bags a good shake during the thawing process, to even out the reabsorption process is a good idea.

Cheers, Dave.
 
Last edited:
Jamie Armitage said:
Jerry and keith
There are ok after boiling and drying them out. Its after i pull them out the freezer they have water or frost damage?
Patches of white or lighter spots??

Jerry i add a little of food colouring to keep the colours rich and dark. You roll them by hand? must take long time fella...


cheers jamie
Click to expand...
patches of lighter spots, i have had on ready mades., doesn't make any difference to the fishing.
 
It`s frost burn that makes them like that.
Andy
 
yes its freezer burn, occurs when moisture freezes and is pushed to the surface, perfectly ok to use but try spraying them with some flavoured water before they thaw out
 
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