Advice on BULK HOLDING

[BrewPub]

HI ALL<

Quick question.  I have a Brew PUb in Baltimore.  We just started crabs last week.  Our cooking procedure is perfect.....but I am having a problem storing.  I get 215 lbs of blue crabs in on Friday and want them to last thru Sunday.  I was told I should pre steam all crabs (15 minutes - not fully cooked) and then re-steam to a finish product.  Well, that didnt work.  All came out mush. I tossed ALOT of crabs.  Does anyone have any ideas???

[jaibaguy]

keep ´em frozen and cook them until you´re going to eat them

[Crabpop]

BrewPub, I assume the crabs arrive at your place of business in bushel baskets.  Do you have a walk-in cooler (NOT freezer) to store them in?  They'd probably do ok in there, with an occasional cold water rinse while in the baskets.  You can't partially steam/boil crabs and then finish cookin' them at a late time; yep, you'll get mush!
I know some of the crab carryout places I frequent in the winter have a storage unit/trailer with electric cooling system out back of their place.  These businesses are kinda small and have no room for a walk-in cooler inside.  This seems to work well for them and might be your best solution.  Nuthin' fancy here; you've probably seen these slide-in units in the back of pickup trucks.  The carry-outs use them to make the run to the Wholesale Seafood Market in Jessup, stack up the bushel baskets inside, and then when they get back to their place of business, they plug the cooling system into an outside 110V outlet.  Good luck.

Crabpop  

[cblu]

I do know of some restaurants that do pre steam then with good success. I've been in a restaurant in Dundalk where they had bushels of crabs pre- steamed in their walk in frig and they were selling these things to customers for $36/ doz and up (2 years ago) so I don't think they were having a problem with quality. I questioned the owner and he said that was the only way they were able to serve the large volume of customers on the weekends. It took 1/2 the time to cook, so you could serve twice as many. Also, he said since you don't want to cook any dead ones, after 2-3 days of delivery, they'd steam any live ones left, to keep down the throw aways. But, keeping them live is the preferable way. Keeping them in the frig will work for a few days, just keep them moist.