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Now that you have caught your California Spiny Lobster, you find yourself asking the very important question:

HOW DO I CLEAN A LOBSTER?

Things you should know about cleaning lobster:

1)  When you clean a lobster keep in mind that the juice that comes out of a lobster when you clean it is very hard to get off of whatever it lands on.  I do not recommend cleaning your lobster on: your driveway, in your sink, or on a table (even with newspaper covering the table).  Instead I highly recommend using a cutting board (the smooth side of a synthetic cutting board works best) although wood cutting boards work well as well. 

2)  Even when out of the water for a long period of time, and despite serious trauma inflicted to the lobster, the lobster tail can and does snap closed!  Never hold or place your fingers on the underside of the lobster when cleaning your bug. 

3)  NEVER ever place your lobster in fresh water.  If you do store or transport your lobster on ice make sure they are WELL ABOVE the melting water line and will not got splashed or submersed for any period of time while transporting the bugs by the fresh water.  Fresh will diffuse into your lobster and ruin the meat.  Never place it in fresh water.. did I mention don't put your lobster in fresh water?

CLEANING LOBSTER

What you will need:

• A cutting board :synthetic or wood (smoother surface the better)

• A filleting knife

• Plastic wrap

• A long lobster antennae

• gloves (diving gloves or thick synthetic gloves work great)

MAKING THE INCISIONS

Many divers simply rip the tails from the carapace by holding the lobster in one hand while rotating the tail counter clockwise.  However in order to get the majority of the meat within the carapace I have always use a long filleting knife to cut high up into the carapace, thus getting all of the lobster meat possible. 

1)  First place the lobster on its belly with the tail spread out.  Hold the lobster at the top of the carapace, using the palm of your hand to hold the lobster down.  Since I am right handed I usually hold the lobster with my right hand, palm closest to the tail, and fingers around the sides of the lobster carapace.  With the left hand, start at one side of lobster's carapace and carefully cut high into the carapace while slightly angling the knife towards the center of the lobster.  Cut from one side of the carapace to the other. 

2)  Another optional but unnecessary cut can be made on the underside of the tail.  To make this cut, maintain your grip of the lobster as you have above with your right hand.  Now flip over the lobster so the underside of the lobster is now facing towards you.  Adjust the position of your hand so that you may hold both the tail and carapace in place, thus preventing the tail from snapping.  Lobster can and do kick their tail so use extreme caution if you attempt to make this cut.  While firmly holding the body and tail from the underside of the lobster in order to prevent the lobster from kicking, make an incision from one side of the lobster belly towards the other. 

3)  To separate the lobster hold the carapace with one hand and the underside of the tail with the other hand.  Rotate and pull the tail counterclockwise to remove the tail from the body.

4)  The digestive tract from the lobster extends throughout the tail portion to the anus at the base of the lobster tail.  You will want to remove as it is often full of sand and detritus the lobster feeds on.  To do this clip a small portion of the longest antennae you have off.  You want to have a long firm antennae that is not easily flexed for this part of the cleaning.  Once you have detached an antennae (simply pull and twist the antennae off) insert the antenna into the lobster's anus.  Insert the antenna all the way into the tail until it comes out the other end.  As long as you hold the tail straight (and yes it still make kick when you do this so always make sure to hold the tail from the underside to prevent injury to your hand) the antennae will faithfully pick up all of the digestive tract.  Once inside twist the antennae 360 degrees while slowly pulling the antennae out the same end you inserted it into the anus.  You should see a long clear tract now covering the antennae.

5)  An important step in cleaning the lobster is the removal of the swimmerets.  The swimmerettes are the fan shaped extensions on the underside of the lobster's tail.  The longer swimmerets with the white appendages beneath them indicate you have a female lobster in your hands.  The male lobster lack this appendage and usually have much smaller swimmerets.  By using a pair of clean chicken bone scissors or clean pair of dikes clip the swimmerets off at the base of the tail.  When cooking the lobster, the lobster swimmerets have a tendency to balloon up at times while cooking.  Also many small arthropods live on the lobster in the protection offered to them by the swimmerets.  By removing the swimmerets you can easily remove these arthropods and eliminate the chance of your lobster swimmerets from expanding while cooking the lobster.  The expansion of the swimmerets does not harm the meat, but some people find these swimmerets to be unsanitary; and since, as mentioned above they do conceal bugs, the idea of eating your lobster while a charred bug falls to the plate often sends a poor message to your guests I recommend you remove them.

6)  When you are done with step five, dip your lobster in salt water to remove any bugs are portions of the swimmerets.  NEVER under any circumstances should you place your lobster in water!  EVER!  By placing your lobster in water you cause the fresh water to slowly diffuse into the meat of the lobster, thus causing the cells to shatter and ruin the meat. 

7)  Now that your lobster is clean you should wrap your bug if you plan on storing it for later consumption.  To do this simply tear off a piece of shrink wrap about a foot larger than your lobster tail.  Lay your lobster out the long way on the shrink wrap (i.e. place the tail end of the lobster the long way on the wrap instead of in line with the width).  When you lobster is evenly distributed on the wrap fold the top excess over the exposed lobster meat, and the other portion of the wrap over the tail end of the lobster's tail.  Now roll the lobster so you try and eliminate any air from the wrap.  Try to fold the wrap so that the majority of the shrink wrap ends up on the underside of the lobster tail.  This reduces the chance of tearing a bag or injuring your hand on the underside spikes when transporting the lobster.

A contribution by Matt Wahlrab

Matthew Wahlrab is a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer with over 1,000 dives logged under his belt, and has been conscientiously hunting lobster for five years.

Does this article help?  Drop us a line at info@calcoastdivers.com and let us know what we can do to improve it or answer more questions you may have!

Copyrighted by Ryan Jaeger & Matthew J. Wahlrab 2002 - 20032