Feb 11 2009
Fresh Snow Crab
Tonight's dinner!
We received our first shipment of fresh snow crab (opilio) in from Trident’s Saint Paul plant today. With Valentine’s Day this weekend, coordinating this fresh shipment was a bit of a “nail-biter” for me. There is only one freight plane leaving the island on Wednesdays- so I’m always worried about bad weather.
Last year the Bering Sea ice pack expanded south and engulfed the island. Crab boats could not deliver for several weeks- which put a real damper on or fresh snow crab program.
I just went back to the cooler and sampled a leg; it’s excellent! My friends out at Trident are taking care of me. The crab is unusually large for opilio:)
My wife Katy and I are going to a dinner party tonight, so I will bring 10 pounds or so. To my knowledge, there is no other company dealing in fresh snow crab right now. It’s kind of a neat thought to realize that the only fresh crab out there right now happens to be sitting in our cooler. I need to try to figure out a way to get the word out about this wonderful product. Once people try it fresh, they are usually remiss to go back to frozen. Our business is in a great position to grow with this trend, as fresh Alaska crab is sure to grow in popularity.
i would love to try out the fresh snow crab but I don’t know if there is much of a difference between fresh snow crab vs. frozen one. I have been eating frozen snow crab all my life and haven’t had a problem with them. Most of the time, they taste sweet and soft to me. How much sweeter are the fresh ones? I also have another question regarding your description of “fresh” crabs. In your description, fresh snow crab (or king crab) are cooked then chilled to 32F (frozen temperature?) then shipped out. Does that mean they are cooked then got frozen in normal household fridge then shipped out? Does that taste fresh anymore? I just got a little confused in that. Oh as of right now (feb 18, 2009), do you have jumbo/giant snow crab? How much does cluster weight to be considered jumbo? Sorry if i have asked too many questions
Elyse,
There are 2 main differences that stand out to me. The first is the flavor. Frozen crab sometimes acquires a bit of a sharp “briny” flavor, which is a result of oxidation. Fresh crab is completely devoid of this off-flavor, and the natural sweetness and crab flavor stands out. The second is the texture. Fresh crab is more delicate than frozen. The meat pulls apart more easily than frozen, and it’s a bit more succulent.
With regard to the chilling- the process actually follows the same steps as in frozen crab production. The only difference is that fresh crab is just briefly dipped into the brine freezer. This is done carefully- so that the crab is chilled down only to 32 degrees, which is the optimal shipping temperature.
Our snow crab is opilio crab (the kind you may have seen harvested on Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch”). The clusters usually weigh between 1/3 - 1/2 pound each. Our giant snow crab is bairdi. The quota for this variety is much smaller. We should be getting in our first shipment of frozen bairdi in withing the next 2 - 3 weeks. We haven’t offered it fresh this year because deliveries of this type of crab tend to be very sporadic.
I hope that I have answered all of your questions. If you do try our fresh crab, I would invite you to post your opinion of it here.
-Cade
Wow fresh snow crab?? That sounds amazing right now. I have ordered frozen snow crab legs from http://www.simplylobsters.com before. As far as I know, frozen and fresh shouldn’t taste too different. The legs I got from that company were amazing so I’d like to try fresh sometime. Snow crab is my favorite though, so maybe I’m a little biased as it is. Meaning, I don’t care too much if it’s frozen or straight from the sea. I recommend Simplylobsters.com if you would like to compare. Now, I just need to get my hands on some of YOUR fresh stuff. Neat blog.
James,
Fresh snow crab is a treat. Unfortunately, the season is wrapped-up for the year. I expect our next shipment in January- although there is a possibility of some bycatch of Baridi (giant snow crab) from the October Bristol Bay king crab season.
We should see some frozen Bairdi later this week. If you like snow crab, I suspect you’ll really like Bairdi. It is very flavorful, and is considerably larger than the more common snow crab.
We will be getting regular shipments of fresh Norton Sound (Alaska) king crab beginning in June. This is a nice crab too, although they are smaller than their Bristol Bay cousins.
I took a look at Simply Lobsters. It seems like a nice site. I was impressed that they are offering live Australian lobsters.
Anyway, I hope you will try our fresh crab when the season comes around.
-Cade
Hi, nice posts there
thank’s for the interesting information