North Carolina waters. They will 

 begin testing the net this spring. The 

 team will also be weighing the costs of 

 the using the nets against the costs of 

 using pots. And they'll be trying to 

 find out where the nets work best. 



For a crab processor, 

 cooking a crab for eight 

 minutes and cooking it 

 for 15 minutes could 

 mean the difference bet- 

 ween making it or break- 

 ing it in the business. 

 Bob Pittman, a partner in Osprey 

 Seafoods in Chocowinity, likens cook- 

 ing crabs to cooking hot dogs. "You 

 take a hot dog and put it in the 

 microwave for one minute and 

 everything is just right. But you put it 

 in there for ten minutes and it'll come 

 out all shriveled up." 



That's what was happening to crabs 

 at the seafood plant when Pittman and 

 his partner bought the company in 

 September. "We were just overcooking 

 the crabs and driving all the moisture 

 from the meat," says Pittman. 



So Pittman called on Sam Thomas, 

 a Sea Grant seafood specialist at the 

 North Carolina State University 

 Seafood Laboratory in Morehead City, 

 to evaluate the cooking process at the 

 plant. ^ 



Thomas set up thermometers inside 

 the cookers to monitor the tem- 

 peratures while the crabs were cook- 

 ing. He found that the entire cooker 

 was overheating, improperly ven- 

 tilating and causing excessive 

 pressures. 



Most cookers operate under 12 to 15 



pounds of pressure per square inch. 

 "When you contain that inside a vessel 

 like a crab cooker, the pressure buildup 

 inside on the walls and doors is tremen- 

 dous," says Thomas. In this case, 

 pressures were higher than they should 

 have been and could have been 

 dangerous. 



The solution? Thomas estimated the 

 optimum temperature and pressure 

 over an eight-minute period and 

 recommended venting the cooker and 

 adding bleeders or small openings to 

 allow steam to escape. 



Those recommendations made the 

 system safer and more efficient, says 

 Pittman. Now, instead of yielding nine 

 pounds of crab meat for 100 pounds of 

 crab, Pittman says he gets 10 pounds 

 of meat for the same 100 pounds of 

 crab. 



That may not sound like much, but 

 consider that it's not unusual for 

 Pittman's company to process 10,000 

 pounds of crab in one summer day. 



If crabmeat were $6 a pound, that 

 one extra pound of crabmeat he gains 

 is a savings of $6 per 100 pounds or 

 $600 in one day. 



Sea Grant has just 

 published a series of 

 working papers and 

 technical reports. 

 Modeling Estuarine 

 Migration and Abun- 

 dance of the Brown 

 (Penaeus Aztecus) of 

 Sound, North Carolina, 

 by Marc-david Cohen and George S. 

 Fishman of the Curriculum in Opera- 

 tions Research and Systems Analysis 



Shrimp 

 Pamlico 



at the University of North Carolina at 

 Chapel Hill, develops a series of 

 models that examines the in-migration 

 of brown shrimp to the estuarine nur- 

 series and the out-migration of shrimp 

 from the nursery to fishable areas. The 

 models are part of a larger study 

 designed to develop methodologies for 

 evaluating fishery management 

 policies. For a copy of this working 

 paper, write UNC Sea Grant, Box 

 5001, Raleigh, N.C. 27650-5001. Ask 

 for publication UNC-SG-WP-83-1. 

 The cost is $2.75. 



An Evaluation of Five Types 

 of Binders to Improve the Ar- 

 tificial Diet of Young American 

 Eels, by James F. Salevan of the 

 North Carolina State University 

 Department of Zoology, examines and 

 evaluates five types of binders used in 

 the preparation of feeds for American 

 eels under culture. For a copy of this 

 publication, write UNC Sea Grant. 

 Ask for publication UNC-SG-WP-83-3. 

 The cost is $1.25. 



Coastwatch is published monthly 

 except July and December by the Uni- 

 versity of North Carolina Sea Grant 

 College Program, 105 1911 Building, 

 North Carolina State University, 

 Raleigh, NC 27650-5001. Vol. 10, No. 

 4, April, 1983. Dr. B.J. Copeland, 

 director. Neil Caudle, editor. Kathy 

 Hart and Nancy Davis, staff writers. 

 Second-class postage paid at Raleigh, 

 NC 27611. 



COASTWATCH 



105 1911 Building 



North Carolina State University 



Raleigh, NC 27650 



Second-class postage paid 

 at Raleigh, NC 27611 

 (ISSN 0161-8369) 



12357 



STATE OF N C LIBRARY 

 109 E JONES ST 

 RALEIGH NC 27601 



NNN 



