Catching Spider Crabs

[felipe felop]

mid june in 2006 was the last the last time they all did the wife swap thing,down at burton bradstock, what a site to behold i did wonder why it was soo murky,maybe baby gravy,erhhhm anyhow i did'nt see any last year, but the mullet were plentiful,biggest one i had was just under 3 & anarf pounds, little tinkers run off like a steamtrain but it was an easy swim out but a long way out to get my float back on a strong outgoing tide,i hit him an inch too high, i dont like it when that happens, do you think it taints the flesh? felt better after he got smoked & warmed himself by the fire,heyho the things we do for love

[Padaxes]

I`ve been toying with the idea of actually keeping some spidercrabs to eat, but am unsure on how big they have to be to make it worthwhile. Assuming its a big clawed male, what sort of shell width would a spider have to have to make it worth eating ?

I`m also intregued by the one claw idea.... or I was until I read this

Crabs "starve to death" after claw removal - Fishupdate.com

[baldyfish]

unfortuately the majority of "clawed" crab do die due to stress or starvation. my zooologist brother told me one day in disgust after i came home from potting with a bag full of claws. i thought i was being humane but the chances of them surviving are fairly slim and they suffer a painful death apparently. So according to him its best to just take the lot........

[Padaxes]

Damn thats what I was afraid of. I`ll just take the odd big one I guess, my gf is keen to make thai crab cakes. As I understand it the best way to kill them is to stick them in the freezer ?

[foxfish]

You will need plenty of free space to freeze a 3-4lb spider! You will also need a big pot to boil it in too.

[scottie3030]

talking of big pots wheres the best palace to buy a big'un for crabs to take there last dip in

[ickledevil]

Got mine from a car boot, but Ebay is a fair bet, theres also a cookshop in Weymouth but probably expensive. Have cooked big lobsters in a tea urn borrowed from the village hall before!

[foxfish]

If you want to correctly cook your crustaceans then you need as much boiling water as possible, heated by the biggest flame you can manage. The bigger the volume of water the less affected the temperature will be when you place in the crabs. You dont want the water to stop boiling when you drop in the crab as "A" it is not very humane "B" your timing to cook the beast wont be accurate.
I would recommend a minimum size pot of one & a half gallon but the bigger two gallon stock pots are better. I have never found this size stock pot difficult to find, readily available in most cook shops or hardware shops.

[omega3]

Yes easy to find very good onesin the specialist cooking shops IE Nova or Lakeland in the UK . Wait for the sales if they are a bit too pricey. Got mine down from £100 to £30 to replace the 20 litre cooking oil drum I was using free from a hotel.
Those crabs look good, not seen any around here. "20 miles south of Plymouth harbour and the Southern Star has left her pots to soak.....meanwhile 10 miles South of Plymouth harbour and the Ramshackle is on the crab..." they are nipping fingers, yeah sounds like the deadliest catch!

[Padaxes]

Hey Foxfish, does freezing the crab first to kill it affect the flavour ? I dont think I`m quite up to chucking a live animal into boiling water yet

[foxfish]

Not sure about that but the freezer idea is based around slowing the creatures metabolism right down but not actually killing the creature. However I have found this is a bad method because the very cold crab takes the water straight off the boil & seems to awake the crab not kill it!!!
Like I said, you need plenty of water on a good rolling boil, add some sea salt, drop the "room temperature" crab in a shut the lid! I dont actually enjoy boiling crabs but I think it is the best way to go.

[Padaxes]

Way I understood it is if you stick a crab/lobster in the freezer it slows down, goes to sleep then dies. You could then defrost it before the boiling part.

[baldyfish]

boil them alive. they die instantly and its the tastiest method. i know a few people who have gotton sick from boiling dead crab so ive never tried it. think of it as a jaccuzi for crabs........

[Tong]

I cooked my first hand caught spider crab the other day, i put him in fresh water for 10mins first.

he was delicious, i think someone had got to him before me though because he only had 1 claw.

[scottie3030]

cheers people also whats the best way to keep them alive once out the water? and long will they last? also not a crab question ,how do you keep mussels? do you freeze them before cooking or after and how do you know there alright once defrosted?