Processing Information

•  100% Snow Crab – Chionoecetes opilio
•  Before processing starts crabs are kept in fresh sea water tanks alive.
•  Process – Crabs are taken from live storage are then slaughtered, then split into two clusters excess shell and gills removed. A cluster consist of 4 legs 1 claw.
•  Bleeding – The clusters are immersed in salt water and allowed to bleed for up to 45 minutes.

After bleeding has taken place the Clusters are graded and packed into stainless steel wire baskets, the weight of which is determined by final pack size.

• Cooking – The wire baskets containing crab clusters are immersed in boiling water with a 3% salt solution for 16 to 20 minutes depending on size of the clusters. Residual salt content of the product will be less than 1.5%.
• Meat fill 80% minimum.
• Chilling – After cooking process the clusters are immersed in chilled water for 15 minutes until the product has reached 2.5 degrees centigrade.
• Freezing – After the clusters have been allowed to drain for 5 minutes the baskets are loaded into a blast freezer at -38°c for 2.5 hours-.
• Packing – After clusters are frozen to -18°c the clusters are removed from the basket and packed into the final format.

Grading Information On Snow Crab Clusters

• All sizes with 1 or more missing legs gram “H = MIX”
• – 150 gram “M”
• 150 – 200 gram “L1”
• 200 – 250 gram “L2”
• 250 – 300 gram “L3”
• 300 – 350 gram “L4”
• 350 – 400 gram “L5”
• 400 + gram “L6”