Boiling Crawfish

krw

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Minuteman
Feb 28, 2004
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I am goin to buy a 42-60 qt pot with strainer for sole intent of boiling crawfish. Bag weighs 30-35lb, want to be able cook bag in 2 boilings. Do I buy aluminum or pay extra for SS? Thanks
 
Whichever you choose, get one with a drain or hose bib on it. Thats a lot of water to be lifting. Remember the longer they soak the hotter they get. And dont forget to suck the heads. (y)
 
I've done a few boils now and initially bought an aluminum pot. Over 2-3 years, the aluminum corroded and didn't realize it.

Found out about the leak in the bottom of the pot right before I intended to boil up 100 pounds of mud bugs last spring for my daughter's high school grad party. So there I was scrambling an hour before food was supposed to be done trying to find a turkey fryer.

Buy stainless and be done with it.

+1 on sucking the head!
 
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I'm sure there are lots of other videos on Youtube. I know this channel has multiple "How To" videos and his recipes are pretty good:



 
Go to your local liquor store and buy a half barrel of beer, you will pay a deposit on the keg. Get one that looks like a cylinder. Invite your friends over, light up the barbecue, eat, drink, and be merry. Keep the keg, they will keep the deposit. Cut the top out with an angle grinder and file smooth. Ta Da! 15.5 gallon cooking pot. Mine is 304L stainless. Made a removable screen basket for it also. Without the basket you can deep fry turkeys if so desired. Just stick a piece of drill steel or 1" rebar through the handles to lift it on and off the flames.

Thank you,
MrSmith
 
Stainless-way easier to clean. I have a 80 quart and it holds 30lbs crawfish with all the fixins. Don't forget to put a stick of butter in the water with your seasoning, makes the crawfish meat come out easier. We use Louisiana seasoning. This style burner
Bayou Classic Banjo Outdoor Cooker With Hose Guard - Kab4 - BayouClassicShop
is the best way to go.
 
Haha, I have cooked crawfish in a heavy aluminum pot for 15 years and it basically shows no wear from the day I bought it. It cleans up easily. I cook 4-5 times a year.


Exactly, I’m from South La and my crawfish pot is an old aluminum pot that my father liberated from mil chow hall in the 50’s.
It is as functional now as the day he got it.

You’re boiling water, not simmering a tomato sauce. There’s a guy here on the Al coast that’s selling 5gal plastic buckets with an electric heating elements in the bottom and they boil up shrimp and crabs just fine.

If you’re going to get turkeys in it or cook chili, gumbo, whatever, then SS may be worth the price, but I’ve got no issues at all cooking with alum. Hell, in Cajun country if a meal wasn’t cooked in cast iron it was likely cooked in a heavy alum Magnalite pot.

Check out King Kooker, I know one of the owners and use one of their big horizontal cookers regularly. Whether you decide to go SS or alum, they’ll have what you want at a fair price.
 
I actually bought my 110 quart pot in 1996. So, 23 years at 4-5 times a year. That's somewhere from 90-115 times it has been used and still going strong. I would think I will pass it on to my child when I pass and I am just 49.
 
Not a damned thing wrong with aluminum. As mentioned, you are just boiling water. This is not rocket science. My only advice is to get one big enough to cook a sack at a time, you shouldn’t be doing two batches unless you have 2 sacks to cook.

Also, get a jet burner with a single orifice, and take the regulator out of the gas line. You actually use a lot less gas that way. It boiled water faster, and is way more efficient.
 
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This is funny. I boil thousands of pounds a year. It’s not the tools it’s how u use it. Worry about seasoning and not over cooking. It’s just a pot of hot water. Don’t purge just rinse the mud off pick the dead ones out cook and drink beer
 
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Not a damned thing wrong with aluminum. As mentioned, you are just boiling water. This is not rocket science. My only advice is to get one big enough to cook a sack at a time, you shouldn’t be doing two batches unless you have 2 sacks to cook.

Also, get a jet burner with a single orifice, and take the regulator out of the gas line. You actually use a lot less gas that way. It boiled water faster, and is way more efficient.

Yep, I pay a hell of a lot more attention to the efficiency of the burner than the pot I'm boiling water in.
 
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