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Crawfish Breakdown for Meat & Fat Yields

Posted on 7/13/23 at 10:48 pm
Posted by Dubaitiger
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Member since Nov 2005
5161 posts
Posted on 7/13/23 at 10:48 pm
I found some live crawfish in Abu Dhabi that said they were a product of Egypt. However, when I saw them walking around and got closer I could smell the Louisiana swamp.. Well, not really, but I knew they were Red Swamp Louisiana Crawfish, called Procambarus Clarkii !!

Then, I did a bit of research and they sure were, where at one time were considered an invasive species in Egypt... Some old Egyptian Baw many years ago bought and shipped some small ones and when they grew they were tearing his nets, so he called them cockroaches and threw them into the Nile River, where they went to town populating. What a great thing to be invading a country! Anyway, they now have a huge export crawfish business and even ship back to the USA. Go figure!

I wanted to break down the weights of crawfish meat, with fat and with claw meat and these are my results.

Average weight on 15 crawfish (After I boiled and ate 3 kg. (6.6 pounds) I got the following numbers below:

53 grams average weight of the 15 test crawfish
9.3 grams average weight of tail & fat
15.5% tail meat only average from total body weight
17.5% tail meat & fat average from total body weight
24% tail meat, fat & claw meat average from total weight
25% same as last but a large set of claws

So, to get one pound of peeled crawfish tails & fat you would need 49 individual crawfish- 454g/9.3g = 48.8 round to 49 crawfish.

Some had a lot of fat where the tail was 9 grams and it had 5 grams of fat. One crawfish with big claws had about 5 grams of claw meat.

Numbers seem correct to you crawfish experts?
Posted by SixthAndBarone
Member since Jan 2019
9809 posts
Posted on 7/14/23 at 6:58 am to
Crawfish heads grow un-exponentially from the tails. Heads grow faster than the tails. The larger the crawfish, the less meat yield. So size matters when determining meat yield.
Posted by BigDropper
Member since Jul 2009
8123 posts
Posted on 7/14/23 at 10:08 am to
Interesting data, but I don't have an answer to your question.

One helpful bit of information that you could include is number of crawfish per pound.

If you measured "53 grams average weight of the 15 test crawfish" and "to get one pound of peeled crawfish tails & fat you would need 49 individual crawfish" then 49x53g= 2597g. Divide that by 454g=5.720264317180. So, to get #1 of crawfish tails with fat you would need #5.7 of cooked crawfish.
Posted by Dubaitiger
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Member since Nov 2005
5161 posts
Posted on 7/14/23 at 1:40 pm to
that is correct 5.7 #
Posted by gumbo2176
Member since May 2018
17808 posts
Posted on 7/14/23 at 2:25 pm to
From my practical experience of many boils just to harvest the tail meat and cleaned heads for Crawfish Bisque and other crawfish based dishes, it takes close to 6 lbs. of boiled crawfish to end up with 1 lb. of tail meat.

The bigger the crawfish, the less meat to shell ratio due to the large head/thorax portion. You will get better ratios using medium crawfish as far as shell to tail meat ratios.
Posted by Dubaitiger
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Member since Nov 2005
5161 posts
Posted on 7/14/23 at 6:43 pm to
Exactly, 5.7 # is close to 6 #. And at 6 # whole crawfish for 1 # of tail meat is 16.7%, which is in between my 15.5-17.5% for net tail n fat.
Posted by saintsfan1977
Arkansas, from Cajun country
Member since Jun 2010
8838 posts
Posted on 7/15/23 at 2:48 pm to
Yes that's correct. There's about 7lb of tails in a sack of crawfish.
Posted by Stadium Rat
Metairie
Member since Jul 2004
9855 posts
Posted on 7/15/23 at 4:29 pm to
Thanks for posting this information, Dubaitiger. Very interesting.
Posted by Dubaitiger
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Member since Nov 2005
5161 posts
Posted on 7/15/23 at 10:19 pm to
quote:

Thanks for posting this information, Dubaitiger. Very interesting.


S. Rat,

You are welcome
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