Heating Curves During Commercial Cooking of the Blue Crab

Abstract

Blue crabs are cooked in steam retorts or boiling water baths to assist in removing the meat from the shell. As a first step in determining if spores of Clostridium botulinum would survive the process, internal crab temperatures were measured during cooking in commercial plants. Tests were done in six states. Crabs were instrumented with thermocouples, and heating curves were recorded during normal commercial processing. The lowest terminal heating temperature achieved in an instrumented crab during steam retorting was 208 F; however, this temperature remained above 180 F for 4 min. In the boiling water bath, the terminal heating temperature was slightly lower (205 F) but the time above 180 F was longer (11 min).