Freezing Crab

[Rip'N'Lips]

So, I went out on Friday for 3 hours with my daughter and we scored. We ended up with 22, could of limited, but decided to count our lucky stripes. Brought them home and cooked up and had 3 left over. We love crab at our house and it got me wondering, can you freeze crab? I would love to vacuum pack them and have them year round. Has anyone pulled it off? What if I clean them, but don't cook them and throw them in the freezer, will I be in a hospital if I then eat them? Any ideas would be great.

[Phil Layer]

I am new to crabbing myself but went out with some experienced friends. They boiled them up and then froze them uncleaned. They also said you can clean them before freezing, if you prefer, but we didn't take the time.

I didn't bother vacuum sealing them because they won't last that long in my house. I also think they would be difficult to vacuum seal as they have so many pointy parts to 'em.

Could luck in the future.

[brshooter]

Good question. When we go down to T-Bay and get crab, we end up eating crab like crazy for about 3 or 4 days. I would like to be freeze it also and have some later. I know when you get it from the store, it has been flash frozen in most cases. What can we do at home to freeze it.
I thought about picking the meat, spreading it on a cookie sheet and freezing it just until it was frozen. Then vacuum pack it. Has anyone done this.
How about it Roy? You are the crab king. Share your secrets.

[Big Dave]

Don't mean to throw a wet blanket on the party boys,but here is my experence with trying to freeze crab and I have crabbed for the last 20 years. If you freeze crab I have found that no matter how it is done , cleaned, cooked,uncleaned, uncooked, in the shell or out, picked or unpicked, vac-packed or in plastic tubs. Frozen Crab = wet soggy tastless crab meat. My motto for many years has been to enjoy it fresh and take only what you will enjoy for a few meals !
Have fun and enjoy !.....Big Dave.

[STRIKE ZONE]

I would try cooking it crackin it then eatin what you can.Take the left over's and run them through
the food saver.It's only gonna be around the freezer for two week's to a month it should be fine.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

[Smily]

I Agree with Big Dave, Except we made Crab cakes and froze them for 2 weeks and they were pretty good. Not as good fresh but still good. I think the cake part obsorbs the flavor and it keeps it better. Got some more crab cakes that I'm gonna freeze again tonight. Hope it stays as good as the last time. But you gotta enjoy them when you get them!!!!

:smile: Smily :smile:

[Pete]

I'm on Big Dave's band wagon. Take only what you will eat in a few days and enjoy it fresh. Freezing crab changes it for the worse; bad flavor, bad texture, bad smell. I've tried all sorts of ways, including turning it into crab bisque and none of it comes close to being good. Experiment with a little. Maybe you will find something you'll find acceptable. I've tried and haven't found anything that works for me.

[Pilar]

Big Dave, I agree. Something happens to crab when frozen that makes it into tasteless mush. Or maybe I am so spoiled eating the fresh that anything else is just ... never mind.

There is no shortage of friends and inlaws that will make crab go away as fast as I can catch it.

[Bait O' Eggs]

One more vote for frozen crab is changed into tasteless mush. I have tried all the possible combinations and none seem to work out. Gizmo tells me he has frozen whole crab and then ate it later, I think he likes crab so much he doesnt care it is like 10% of the quality of fresh crab.

I have some friends that like to back and clean the crab prior to cooking. I do not like doing this as I believe a whole crab cooks up better and definately keeps a little longer in the fridge if it hasnt been cleaned.

We currently have a couple crabs we shelled out and then vac packed. Neither the wife nor I want to open the package and be dissappointed so it just sits in the freezer and probably will until we find a use for it like crab bait.

[Thumper]

Well I'm confused. When we get crab here we always eat it fresh, thinking that it will turn into tasteless mush if frozen. Then we go to a fancy lodge in Alaska in October each year and they have crab night and serve everyone a couple of whole (cleaned) Dungeness crabs....so I ask the cook how old the crab is....he says, "well, lessee, we brought it up last May"....and I ask him how they store it and he says....."we just keep it frozen". It is delicious, firm, meaty, crispy great stuff. What's going on????

[Gizmo Man]

Regarding freezing crab, first off there is NO companrison between fresh cooked crab and frozen. On those now rare occassions that I can get it fresh, I eat it until it comes out my ears....but then when I have to, I have frozen a few.

My experience is that cooked frozen whole crab hold up better than cooked cleaned crab.

If it was not for Roy, I would have to settle for artifical crab meat.

Eat it while it is fresh....


Giz...

[Ramstrong]

I agree that crab does lose some flavor after being frozen. However after a particularly abundant trip last summer I brought back too much crab. I wound up freezing 3 packages of meat for crab cakes and crab quiche. We have since used one of the 3 packages for the quiche and it tasted pretty darn good. Now I know it would have been better with fresh crab, but if you're using it for a recipie I think it would be fine.
We wound up cleaning the meat, placing it in a food saver bag and then placing a paper towel above the meat to absorb the juice as you vaccume seald. It worked well and we got a good seal.

[plug cut]

I have had good luck freezing cooked crab in vacume bags. I freeze the crab first in a baggy and then vacume pack. We use frozen crab for omlets and crab cakes. Both are great! I agree that fresh crab is the best and it should be eatten out of the shell.

[Phish_on]

never.

[Starr]

I had to try this to believe it, but it worked.
I would bring crab to my neighbor every year after the annual family crabbing trip. There was just the two of them, so I brought them only a half dozen or so. They called me stingy since, we had caught so many. I told them I wasn't going to bring them more than they can eat and have to waste them, since frozen crab meat is like eating tofu. They told me that frozen crab is as good as fresh, if you know what you are doing. They were old, and I figured their tasters were pretty much shot, but I asked what their secret was. They said that after cooking and cleaning the crab, they froze it in milk. Either shelled or whole. Sounded like wasting milk to me, but I tried it. I couldn't tell the difference. Try it for yourself. My mom absolutly loves crab, and couldn't tell the difference

[Lives_to_fish]

Is that milk you freeze it in or banana peals? Just kidding, I will give it a try and if you are pulling my leg, I will just feel kinda dumb, like most days.

[fishbait]

"We wound up cleaning the meat, placing it in a food saver bag and then placing a paper towel above the meat to absorb the juice as you vaccume seald. It worked well and we got a good seal." I have done this exact thing for many years and it works OK when we have some left over crab.

Fresh is best, but (frozen) crab stuffed Halibut or Salmon is nothing to turn your nose up at.

I'll try the milk thing........

[ 11-14-2001: Message edited by: fishbait ]</p>

[Gobbaworms]

Fresh crab is definately the best, but I'm going to go against the tide of opinion here and say you can get very acceptable results with frozen with a few simple steps. Remember most of the store bought crab has been frozen.
The key is to lower the temp. of the crab as quickly as possible. It's just like when you want al dente noodles, you need to cool (or eat)them quickly, you can't just let them sit in the hot water. Same with the crab. If you let the water drain out of the shell just after boiling by lifting the back a little then plunging them into cold water for a while, then drain again before you stick them in the freezer, they will freeze fine. The meat gets soft and mushy if you don't do this because the core temp of the crab will remain hot enough to continue to cook the crab for hours, even in the freezer.

[Bait O' Eggs]

Gobbaworms - plunging the crab in cold water after cooking is important to stop the cooking but it also makes the meat pull away from the shell, making it easier to crack later.

[Gobbaworms]

Absolutely. Another good point.

[Pilar]

Yes, yes, Bait of Eggs. Overcooking seafood is the number one way to ruin it.

I had crabs cooked at Newport once and ended up giving them all away. They boiled them for over 20 minutes! They did not quench them after either. Yuk!

With any seafood, as soon as the meat turns opaque its done.

[Thumper]

Since most of the crab bought at Freddies is previously frozen, maybe that is the reason for the feeling that freezing "fresh" crab turns it into mush. In that case it would be re-frozen. All I know is that when we eat once-frozen crab in Alaska it is wonderful.

[Orca]

I'll toss out my 2 cents - Freeze away I say! Sure it isn't as good as eating the claws at the cleaning table, but it isn't that bad either. We use frozen for cocktails, quiches, and other recipes.

We general crack all the meat out, freeze in 1 - 2 cup containers, then food-saver a day later after frozen. If we run out of cracking time, I place the legs and bodies in 4 - 5 regular plastic bags after removing all leg ends (the sharp part) and any sharp points on the body, then food-saver 2 - 3 crabs in a bag. The 4 - 5 plastic bags help keep the crab from poking through the food-saver bags. This has worked pretty well so far.

Like other advice given above, we always cook, then cool our crabs in cold water immediately after cooking. Then they are cleaned immediately (or as soon as possible) and packed on ice. We eat what we can for a couple of days, give away a bunch, then the rest goes in the freezer.

[Orca]

Same for the frozen King Crab legs from Costco. They taste great. No mush.