taking care of prawns

bardfromedson

bardfromedson

Member
so im getting ready to head out to the west side of haidi gwaii. im going to try prawning for the first time. im wondering how most people take care of prawns when there on the water. do they need to be on ice right away? do you rip the head off then ice? we will be setting traps on the way out to the grounds so If I can keep them in good shape on the boat I would maybe pull them in the morning on the way out and then again when we come in. will i catch more doing this or should i just pull once a day then they can go strait into the cooking pot or freezer? do you leave the shell on when you freeze them? i have to still read the regulations so excuse any dumb suggestions i made. any and all help is welcome.
 
Going to try it for the first time this year ourselves. Appreciate the tip FS.


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Pinch off tails right away, and straight into cooler with ice. If freezing, I use zip lock bags, fill with fresh water so no air and freeze with shell on. You'll likely find that they are easier to clean after being frozen than fresh and no difference in quality IMHO.
 
I find quality if freezing is best if you make a salt brine with ionized table salt and tap water. Tried sea water and it is not as good. Believe it or not you can keep them live in the refrigerator for 24 hours in no water. I'll say it again, NO water... lol
 
I learned this the hardway last year. Remove the head before they die, or the meat will turn mushy if they die with the head on. I always put some sea water in a cooler and rip the heads of right away best to keep some ice the cooler aswell. Freeze in water when ever possible
 
Tear the heads off right away, throw on ice. Once your home rinse off and freeze in Zip-Lock containers. They stack nice in the freezer and they won't get a hole in them and leak all over the freezer. I like to add water just enough to get them to float and then freeze them over night and then add water to cover them and straight back in the freezer. The large containers hold about a 100 tails. Good luck.
 
Here's what we do:

Fill a large tub or bucket with fresh salt water, and dump your catch directly into that when emptying the traps to keep them alive. Also allows you to live release as necessary. While still alive, tear the head off and place the tail into a pail of salt water. That allows the blood drain out. We then bag the tails and put on ice. When you get home, place the tails into tubs of water and freeze them.
 
searun said:
Here's what we do:

Fill a large tub or bucket with fresh salt water, and dump your catch directly into that when emptying the traps to keep them alive. Also allows you to live release as necessary. While still alive, tear the head off and place the tail into a pail of salt water. That allows the blood drain out. We then bag the tails and put on ice. When you get home, place the tails into tubs of water and freeze them.
Click to expand...

^^ This.

Prawns deteriorate extremely fast. You want to always be keeping them as cold as possible and well rinsed. Prawn guts/juice is bad news, so don't bag the tails without a rinse. I'd also recommend using salt water to freeze with. If the ocean water isn't clean, add salt to the tap water you use.
 
We always take a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom that fits into a slightly larger bucket. Prawns go from the trap to the bucket with holes and into the larger bucket filled with water. After about 5 minutes the water gets changed. The water thrown out is very gross. Usually do that twice before cleaning. The bucket with holes is pretty handy for rinsing the tails after that too.

Like Casper said, the zip lock containers stack nicely in the freezer. I always peel a couple and eat em while cleaning. Hard to peel so fresh but really tasty.
 
One thing I've read on here is to keep them in a bucket with clean saltwater and change it frequently while still alive and it can help purge them quite a bit. I did that as much as I could this year I have 4 traps so each trap I would pull up put the prawns into my bucket and fill with water, check my next trap and before putting the next batch of prawns in would change out the water and it would usually be pretty sooty/brownish tinge, I would do this each time and then when I had all the prawns I would boat back near the marina and rinse 2 or 3 more times before finally pulling the heads off.
 
Not fancy. Rip off heads after out of traps. Into ziplock bags to cooler. Home rinsed put in containers filled with water and frozen never an issue. I don't do rinse off when I am out there. BTW best prawning is in winter/eraly spring months. Less people no commercials.
 
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Catch Prawns, rip off heads, eat a few fresh ...... put in separate container or bag in cooler with ice, get home place in sour cream/ yogurt/cottage cheese containers and top off with salted water and freeze ...... vavoom. fresh 6 months from now.
 
One thing I have noticed over the years is some blanched or pale looking batches. I used to use my tap water with some salt added to the containers. There has been a few batches that have been "faded" or "blanched" so to speak. The only thing that I could come up with at the time was the chlorine in the tap water.

I have since switched to bottled water now for storing my prawns and I have not seen this condition since. Just something to think about is all.
 
Any suggestions on getting a batch from WCVI to the Okanagan? The minimum time from catching to home would be 15 hours. Freeze from an earlier day's catch? Cook them then put in salt ice with the fish in the cooler? It's one of the reasons I haven't gone all in for prawns yet.
 
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As soon as you catch them dehead them then put on ice and keep as cold as you can. When you get home just freeze in shell about 25 to a bag. that's what I do anyway. When your ready to eat take out a bag let thaw for a while 2 or 3 hours then deshell and cook your preferred way.
 
Have been prawning for years not commercially. What I do is keep them in a bucket, go home, grab a beer and start be-heading them and put the tails in a bucket of tap water. clean them and put 50 - 70 into clean 1 litre milk containers with the coloured plastic lids, fill it with tap water, replace lid and freeze. good for years. Yes years...Thats all I have to say about that!!!!
 
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