Efficient Transportation Of Live Lobster

By Jeffrey Murphy


Many people find a lobster that is cooked when fresh to be a delicacy. Cooking it when it is alive happens to be one of many ways it is prepared best. They, however, pose a great challenge when it comes to transporting them as they are adapted to cold salty water environments. It is not easy to create a similar environment in your transporting equipment. It therefore takes some planning in order to deliver a live lobster at your home.

Getting lobsters home alive from a fish market or grocery store requires some planning if you are to get the ultimate results. The important thing that you should consider while shipping lobsters to your home is to ensure that they are cool and moist at whichever time. Most common cause of death during shipping is deprivation of oxygen. The importance of keeping the lobsters cool is that they use less amount of oxygen.

In high temperature environments the lobsters use a lot of oxygen. This makes them more susceptible to dying out of deprivation of oxygen. Since they use gills, keeping them moist helps them maintain their breathing. It is possible to maintain a live, hard-shelled lobster, outside water for as long as five days when you handle them properly.

Ensuring that lobsters are moist does not mean that they get kept submerged in water. They are in fact better placed to survive when not in water while being transported. Directly packing them on top of ice is not advised as this will bring them problems when it melts up. Dry ice produces a lot of carbon dioxide, which would cause the lobster to asphyxiate. They also tend to swell and burst when kept in fresh water.

Transporting these creatures in sea water also puts them in danger of suffocation, unless the equipment they are being transported in allows for aeration. They will tend to use up the dissolved oxygen in sea water at a very high rate in a situation of a container with no aeration allowance. To maintain the recommended levels of temperatures and moisture, refrigeration trucks will be the best option.

For perfect results, it is important to keep lobsters relatively cool prior to them being packed. This helps in acclimatizing them as they go from warm to cold temperatures. Despite the fact that lobsters are more successful in dealing with temperature changes from warm to cold, they are generally not good in dealing with rapid temperature changes.

They should also not be fed for a period of two to three days before being relocated. When they are transported after a very recent feeding, there is a high chance for them to vomit as well as use up more oxygen than they would have on empty stomach. They should be packed closely, also not tight to avoid breaking their shells.

Since lobsters do not stay fresh for long out of water, it is important that you boil them immediately while they are still alive. However, a preheated lobster can be preserved by freezing and it can remain fresh to almost 4 days. Be keen as you prepare lobsters that had been preserved in order to avoid overcooking them and making them hard.




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