This selection includes (12) Small Bay crabs, measuring 5”-5½”. Choose if you want (1) or (2) mallets and the amount of spice on your crabs. Your order arrives steamed & spiced, ready to warm up and eat. A custom crab cooler with gel packs keeps the delivery FRESH and delicious!
(Expires July 4th)
Find out how to crack a crab here.
Do Small Bay Crabs, 5”-5½” taste sweeter?
Smaller blue crabs hide in and around submerged aquatic seagrass beds and tidal marshes for protection from red drum, Atlantic croaker, herons, sea turtles, and of course, humans. They also find nourishment there. A plentiful supply of food will help them develop a salty, robust, and buttery meat. Clams, oysters, mussels, small crustaceans and fish give the small crab a protein rich diet. Likewise, a healthy environment naturally gives the small crab, 5”-5½” a fighting chance in growing to large sizes.
Their molting schedule creates a difference in taste, compared to larger crabs. This molting or changing of shells occurs 4-5 times a month for the small crabs, which leaves the flesh exposed for seasoning from the brackish, partially salty water. They even eat portions of the discarded shell, giving them a calcium-heavy diet. The shell-less frequency also gives the meat a flaky texture, more so than the larger crab’s more compacted texture. The end result, a sweeter, delicate blue crab meat.
The easiest way to understand why small crabs, 5”-5½” boast a sweeter taste is a result of the “salting” of the crabs from the water when they’re shell-less. The two crab halves showcase lump meat, the back swimming legs produce plump, pristine jumbo, and the claws a fibrous sweet darker meat. With picking skills, 2-ounces of meat will pick from a heavy small crab.
