Stone crab season runs from Oct. 15th to May 15th

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Processing

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When we say process we talk about cooking, grading, boxing, and shipping our stone crabs. All days are about the same here, we spend the day running our market selling to the public and preparing for the boats to come in. When the boats arrive the crabs are immediately weighed in green (uncooked) and then placed in baskets that hold up to about 375 lbs. a piece to be cooked. Then they are then brought into the back of our cook room. We cook them at 212 degrees for 8 minutes. They are then placed in a vat of cold water to bring the temperature down to about 64 degrees. This is to stop the cooking process otherwise the crabs will remain cooking in there own shells. The stone crabs are then topped with ice and placed in a large walk-in cooler at 35 degrees for the night.

First thing the next morning we pull the crabs out, rinse them and pour them out on a table for grading. Grading is when the claws are sorted by weight. They are separated into 3 grades Medium (up to 3 ounces), Large (3 ounces to 4.9 ounces), Jumbo (5 ounces and up). Every individual claw is weighed anywhere from 100 lbs. to about 1500 lbs. a day. It's not a job for just anyone. Also we are looking for Lites or Floaters in the crabs as well. This is when a stone crab is light to the point that it will actually float when being cooked, it has a very thin shell and is usually only half full of meat. These claws are seperated from the rest and sold seperately to private buyers; they are not sold through our market or business as they are a garbage grade crab. So when you see crabs for sale at a price so low you can't believe it, that is usually why.