Preparing 2 bushels

[Felinis]

I must be getting good at this - I steamed and cleaned two bushels this weekend and did not cut myself once.

I bought two bushels on the Maryland eastern shore at Lindy's seafood dock.  $25 for a bushel of sooks and $55 for a bushel of jimmies.  Steamed four dozen jimmies Saturday and had a crab feast with my neighbors.  Gave away a dozen to my other neighbor.  That left two dozen jimmies and a bushel of females to steam and clean Sunday.

I figured out how to get a whole bushel into my refrigerator - the fridge is deeper above the crisper, so I pulled out the rack above the crisper glass shelf and removed the bottom retainer bar from the door.   The bushel of sooks just fit, so I kept them refrigerated over-night, opening the door from time to time to let in some fresh air.  Kept the two dozen jimmies in a cooler with ice and a cracked open lid.

I found six dead jimmies when I got home Saturday.  I did not worry about them dying after they were refrigerated.  I did not check for dead females, since they were chilled and un-responsive, but I did throw out two questionable ones while cleaning them after steaming.

I was tempted to kill and clean them before steaming to save room in the steamer, but ended up just chilling them and doing them the old-fashion way.  Chilling them did not seem to cut down on dropped claws - they wake up and drop their claws anyway.  It took four big steamers full altogether.  Used four quarts of cheap beer and 13 cups of vineger.   About 2 1/2 lbs of Old Bay seasoning.

Now I have a crisper drawer full of cleaned crab halves and a BUNCH of claws to clean tonight.
I plan to pick them and freeze the meat for the winter.

I am retiring the steamer after three seasons - it is starting to rust on the bottom.

[fisheyed]

sounds good, how do you pick them.  I like to set up a type of assemply line.  I remove shell, legs, innards then cut off joints with a sharp knife.  After a pile of these forms one person can cut off the top portion leaving the majority of the meat in the bottom leg "channels" then just take the tip of the knife and a flick of the wrist to make the meat fall out into a bowl.  It may sound slower but I have had much better luck with this method than with straight fingers also it is much easier on the fingers and I get larger chunks.  If anyone else has a method please let me know it can be a pain litterally and figuratively to do a bushel

[masspi]

Can we make a deal..............you get the therapy, I will send down about 300# for you to pick

[tattoo]

have fun, can't you  just taste them while the snow is falling outside, 

[R D]

Y'all let me know when the snow is falling up there and i will taste fresh crabs for you, 

[anchor]

rd, by that time i will be ordering softies and nuggets off you!

[crabologist]

rd, by that time i will be ordering softies and nuggets off you!

And you know they'll taste good in the middle of winter ..........................

[Felinis]

Fisheyed,

I wear latex gloves when picking, to avoid having to repeatedly rinse my hands free of Old Bay seasoning.  Reduces finger cuts too.

I clean them but leave the legs on, put the claws in a seperate bowl.  Cleaning out the mustard is important since it dis-colors the meat.  With the females you also have those pink ovaries to get rid of too.  Then I break the crab in half by cracking the shell down the middle.  You can also cut it in two with a big knife or cleaver.

I then strike each crab half once with the hammer to crush and break up the shell (twice for large ones).  At the dinner table, you can do this by crushing the shell with your fingers, but when you are doing a bushel or more you want to use a hammer to cut down on the wear on your hands.

There are three classes of crab meat: back fin, lump and claw.

Backfin is the meat attached to the back swimmer fin of the crab - the best meat and the most likely to come out in big chunks.  Lump is the remainder of the body meat and claw is, well, you know.

I use the legs as handles to the meat.  First I break off the back fin by breaking off the rear swimmer fin along with the back leg.  I break the surrounding shell off this until I have a big piece of crab meat attached to the back swimmer fin.  I pinch this hunk of meat off into a seperate bowl.  The remainder of the shell gets set aside for later picking.  I do this until all of the back fin meat is salvaged, then I pick the remainder and store it as lump meat.

HINT: PROFESSIONAL CRAB PICKERS USE A SINGLE CRAB CLAW AS A TOOL TO PICK CRAB MEAT.

I then pick the lump meat and store it seperately.  The ratio of backfin to lump is about 2:1.

Keep as much of your material refrigerated as much as possible - work with small amounts out of the fridge and return partially filled containers to refrigeration when you are not actually filling them.  Get your back fin frozen first, then your lump.  Save the claws for last.

Sometimes the majority of the claw meat will come out with the "thumb" part of the claw if you break it off the claw carefully.  Try a few and if this doesn't seem to work, go to plan B below.

Plan B
The claws I do on an assembly line too - crack the claw and the arm with a wack of the hammer each.
I store the claw meat with the dividing "bone" in - that retains a nice piece of meat that can be stripped off the bone with your teeth.  After you have hammered the claw, the meat may come out when the "thumb" of the claw is broken off (as explained above).  The arm meat will come out in once piece if you have cooked the crab properly.

Hint for freezing whole cooked crabs: snip off the horns and tips of the claws before bagging the crabs.  This way they are much less likely to puncture the freezer bag.

Freeze the meat in plastic containers with air-tight lids.  Pack the meat down hard.  Pre-freeze the canister of meat, then remove it from the freezer and top it off with a layer of water and return it to the freezer.  The water will freeze into an ice cap and inhibit the meat from freeze-drying.  Label the canister with the date so that you can tell how old it is.  Frozen meat should last for three months.

[tattoo]

GEE, thanks R.D.