By Kerri Hui San Choo
Three thousand litres of potable water is used each day to cook the Blue Swimmer Crabs which are caught by Abacus Fisheries. The cook water has a good flavour profile as it contains volatile compounds, proteins and minerals. Therefore the company wanted to know if it was feasible to utilise the crab cook water to produce a crab stock concentrate. The cadmium levels in the cook water were minimal and well below the maximum residue limit even when concentrated, therefore it did not pose a risk to consumers.
Proximate analysis conducted on the crab cook water determined that an increase in the crab cook load led to an increase in the components of total solids, protein, sodium and pH. The volume of crab cook water remains the same each day but the cook load does not. So, an equation was developed using the protein vs total solids regression line to determine the amount of water that had to be removed from the crab cook water to produce the stock at the desired concentration. Three different processing technologies (boiling, vacuum drying, freeze drying) used to produce stocks were evaluated and sensory analysis conducted on the products.
High quality fruits and vegetables grown in Carnarvon are being underutilised so they were used to produce two value added stocks using the crab stock base (herb flavoured crab stock and a chilli tomato crab stock). Sensory analysis conducted on the value added stocks indicated that both of the products were rated acceptable amongst the consumer panellists; however the chilli tomato crab stock was the most preferred.
In conclusion, the results from the research indicate that it is feasible to use the crab cook water to produce a crab stock concentrate and could also be potentially used to develop other food products.
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Final Reports 
