Northwest Fishing Reports

How long do you all boil Dungies for. I do mine 16 minutes in boiling water.

We start with boiling salted water. Drop the crabs in. Bring back to boiling. Then boil/cook for 20 minutes. Drop in ice water to stop the cooking.

I clean my crab first so after dropping them in, once the water rerutns to boiling I remove them after 15 minutes and hose them down with cold water.

Boil, rolling boil for 20 min. or 190 to boiling, I guess a poach for 30. Those are commercial standards and I never clean a Dungie before cooking. Water should be 7% to 10% brine.

I clean first, it is easier to clean the gut from the meat before cooking. Also you can get more in the pot. 15 minutes at a rolling boil in salted water, then cool to stop cooking and make meat separate from shell. Or eat hot right then.
I have tried adding other spices but I don't think it did much.
I think the longer time some have said would be needed for whole crab.

Bodofish wrote:Boil, rolling boil for 20 min. or 190 to boiling, I guess a poach for 30. Those are commercial standards and I never clean a Dungie before cooking. Water should be 7% to 10% brine.

I have boiled both cleaned and uncleaned dungies. Is it just me, or do the crabs taste better when cooked whole? How is the water tested for 7 to 10 percent salt content?

I think there is a taste difference, I like clean first.

Had to laugh at myself - I have no idea! I catch em, clean em, pass em off to my wife and have a beer. I have no idea how long she cooks em for. I know she uses Old Bay and gives em an ice bath after cooking them.

I typically cook the crabs until the shells turned color. How long is that? I think, 15 minutes or so?

I only ice bath after cooking to chill the crab meat for instant consumption. Otherwise, the crab goes into a large Tupperware container, and into the fridge to cool for eating at a later time. But never iced to stop the cooking process.

Is it possible to over cook crab? I have a routine after returning a combined trip of crabbing/fishing. Upon arriving home. My first trip around the house is with 2 downriggers, the crab, and fish finder. Second is to start boiling the water for the crabs. Then finish putting gear away. Next, check the water for boiling. When boiling the crabs go in. Next is flushing the motors and running the gas out of the carbs.

Check on the crabs to make certain the water is not boiling over!! They are cooking in a big pot, on the side burner of the BBQ..........outside. NO STINK IN THE HOUSE!

Next is a wash down of the boat and trailer. Once, I forgot about the crabs and turned the burner off after 30 min or so. Left them in the hot water for another hour. The crab meat texture and taste was no different than if closely monitoring the cooking, and immediately icing before eating or cooling overnight in the fridge before consuming.

MotoBoat wrote:

Bodofish wrote:Boil, rolling boil for 20 min. or 190 to boiling, I guess a poach for 30. Those are commercial standards and I never clean a Dungie before cooking. Water should be 7% to 10% brine.

I have boiled both cleaned and uncleaned dungies. Is it just me, or do the crabs taste better when cooked whole? How is the water tested for 7 to 10 percent salt content?

google gave me about a cup of regular non iodized salt to each gallon of water to get about 7% salt content. kosher is different weight per volume...blah blah... 1/2 cup regular salt per gallon to get ocean salinity of 3-3 1/2%.

30 years ago, didn't bother cleaning until after cooking.... best flavor, absolutely... now, warnings are out there, enough that I take heed... I clean before cooking. Old Bay or other seasonings.... if you use sparingly, don't bother, you won't taste a difference.... ya gotta dump a ton in to enhance the crabs flavor. I like Old Bay now that I clean the crabs first, makes up for the loss of the crab butter(guts). Every pot of crabs I boil up are different... always changing... something to get it better.. Someday I may leave well enough alone and stick to one recipe, not today. Have fun with it!

I clean my crab first for all the reasons above and use salted water but more like half a cup per gallon. Since they are already cleaned I don't boil for as long as I did when whole (which was 15 minutes). More like 9 or 10 minutes after it comes back up to a boil. I then dunk in ice water to stop the cooking. I'll have to try the sparing use of Old Bay. I love it, but the family doesn't so maybe just a little...

Clean the crabs before hand for health reasons? Sounds like a load of Horse Sh.... to me. Crabs do not eat rotten anything. I've never seen a commercial crab operation clean a crab before cooking. That said, most commercial operations handle the catch correctly before processing. I would certainly understand cleaning first if you catch them and they sit in the boat for many hours before cooking.
As far as 7% salinity, cup in a gallon works, I never test it. Sea water is about 7% at our latitude, higher at the equator and lower at the poles. It's just to approximate sea water so you don't loose taste or dry them out. I always pick and freeze any not consumed right away, pack a container, start to freeze it them fill with the brine and finish. Keeps is so fresh.

I cook mine hole so I can save the crab butter. Its quite good on crustini bread. I use the Zatarins crab boil and a tad of salt.I rinse with ice cold water then clean while still warm. Again saving the butter is easiest done while they are warm. Last nights haul got me a full pint of butter. Tonite will be surf and turf dinner.

I did some crab research work in a cannery processing King Crab in AK. I'm not sure what their actual cooking time was but the process was: break the crab into two sections over a dull blade, scrub remaining "guts" off of the sections, toss sections in the huge cookers for "x" minutes, then dump them into cooling chutes. Line workers then packed the sections into boxes for flash freezing, then shipping.

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Here's the advice from the state, not sayin' its gospel, but its good enough for me to clean them first.

Crab: Eat Dungeness or red rock crab from non-urban areas of Puget Sound. Don’t eat the crab butter or viscera. Viscera are the internal organs under the shell. If you cook crab in boiled water, don’t use the water for soup stock, broth, or gravy. Limited data shows that crab from industrial urban areas contain more contaminants than those from non-urban areas, and crab butter has more contaminants than crab muscle.

I never crab in Elliot Bay, Snohomish area or Tacoma area. I go up north where I hope the water is cleaner. I see people crabbing in Duwamish Head area and I think to myself No Frickin way.

dutchman2858 wrote:I did some crab research work in a cannery processing King Crab in AK. I'm not sure what their actual cooking time was but the process was: break the crab into two sections over a dull blade, scrub remaining "guts" off of the sections, toss sections in the huge cookers for "x" minutes, then dump them into cooling chutes. Line workers then packed the sections into boxes for flash freezing, then shipping.

I've actually done this quite a bit and the reasoning behind cleaning the crabs first is totally a space issue. The cleaned sections are packed into the cooker basket as tightly as possible (try for 140 to 150 pounds) and then cooked. Next in the same basket, they're brine frozen and then removed in a big block and packed in a plastic bag lined box and into the freezer for storage and shipment. This was all developed before the advent of the processors picking the meat onboard and packing bars. The other side is no one eats the guts of a king crab except for a few crazy Norsemen that fuel their libido by eating king crab gills. Since this is a Dungy thread, they're traditionally cook whole because most of the world enjoys eating the "butter" and other icky bits as many do like eating whole cool shrimp, the sucking of the head.

At the coastal boat rental in Oregon, sounds like they do what most others are doing (they boil them whole for you and chill them after for immediate cleaning).

The owner also finds the 'heart' and dips it in the 'crab butter'-- sounds, delicious.

Without eating the gut goulash, the meat is really good and it keeps well if a person is crazy enough to freeze any of it.