prepairing cart.

[eddie t]

First off,it's worth pointing out,that the crab only contain cart between September and December!

This is how I've been shown to do it,and no doubt others will add other bits into there cart,like breadcrumb,or mussel or salmon eggs or magic fairy dust,
But we don't!

So,hear goes,
First off,
You will need some of these,but only of the female persuasion!



Next,
And some may want to kill the crab at this stage in some sort of humane fashion,ill be honest,we don't bother!
Take all the legs and nippers off,
Do with these as you wish,(see last pic)




Next,
This may be a bit brutal for some,
Put them into a solid container,as this is messy from now on in!
And break thru there shells,right across the back,not too heavy handed,or there'll be crab all over the ceiling!
We use a hammer.



Next,
You want to break one side off,gently as possible,and inside you'll find a membrane attached to the inside of the shell,and over the top of the good stuff,




Pull the membrane off the cart,then peel away the skin from the shell,till you got summit like this in ya hands(it's not always as perfect as this one either)



To the right,in the picture above,you'll notice some brown stuff attached to the bright red stuff,you need to gently pull this away from the cart,so all you've got left is summit like the pic below.



This,and only this goes into a tray,
There's the same on the other side of the crab,and a bit in the head aswell,it's a bloody messy job mind ya!



Now,repeat this with every crab,
Slinging all the heads and shell into a big bucket with no holes in(as there's all kinds of crap comes out of these crab.

So,
Now you've spent two hours,up the eyes in sh1te,
The messy bit starts!
We use armour mesh for a couple of different reasons,although its fairly expensive,it's perfect for the job,stays intact on any cast,and can be froze into whatever shape you want,with the aid of some tinfoil(more about that later)

This is it,ready to go below.



Doing this over the top of ya tray of cart,which is remarkly wet by the way,put a bit down the tube,so you've got a nice sized bait,I go for a bait about the size of a ping pong ball.....ish!




You then pull a bit mesh off the tube,enough so with the bait in the bottem(dripping all over the shop)ya can tease it to a fairly compact shape,and tie off with an over hand knot.
Then do another over hand knot above this,and cut between the two.
This way,the mesh is ready to be slid back on the tube ready for the next one.



Now repeat over and over,putting both the bits of skin and cart into the tube,till you've ran out of cart,(on this occasion,116 times)



Then,after allowing them to drain off on dry newspaper,bag them into grip seal bags,or wrap/roll them in tin foil(which I prefer)



Freeze the crab as soon as