How to Clean Lobster

Proper handling of product is vital in a commercial kitchen to ensure you only serve the best dishes. Doing this will also help keep you honest in following health and other rules and regulations, too. Not following them can lead to a business being shut down, and that’s the last thing you want for your restaurant. So keep your seafood edible by learning from Parts Town about how to clean lobster. 

How to Clean Lobster 

Before you just throw that fresh lobster in the pot to boil, let’s take a second to go over how to get it cleaned up. Now we have to determine something before we begin cleaning, is the lobster alive? You’re going to want to add a step for safety if the lobster is live while you’re cleaning it. 

Be sure to band the lobster’s claws before you get started. This will ensure you don’t get pinched while cleaning a live lobster. You can also put it in the freezer for 20 minutes to slow down movement once you’re ready to clean and cook. The following steps will help you clean the overall lobster exoskeleton. 

Now that your safety measures have been taken, these are the steps to clean a lobster before cooking:

• Inspect for roe – If the lobster is a female and you got it fresh, there’s a possibility it could be carrying roe eggs on it. Inspect for that and scrape them off. You can either save them if you serve roe or dispose of them. 

• Run under water – Go ahead and  run cold water from the sink on the lobster to wash away any large debris first.

• Scrub the lobster – Use a scrub brush to clean the lobster of any other finer debris while still holding it under the running water. After this, your lobster should be clean and ready for cooking. 

• Note: Don’t scrub too hard or you can break off parts of your lobster on accident.

How to Clean Lobster Before Cooking

Cleaning a lobster doesn’t just mean rinsing it off, though. Before cooking things like lobster tails, if you aren’t planning to boil them, require some rinsing under that exoskeleton. 

How to Clean Lobster Tails Before Cooking

• Cut off fins – Use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut off the fins from the end and sides of the lobster tail.

• Cut down the center of the tail – Use the kitchen scissors to cut down the exoskeleton’s center from the top or bottom of the lobster tail. 

• Rinse again – Put the tails into a pot with running water to give them one final rinse.

• Drain the tails – After rinsing, you need to set the tails on a paper towel to drain for 10 minutes or more if needed. Then they are ready to be cooked. 

How to Clean Lobster After Cooking

If you boil the lobster, then you have to clean the shell. Once the lobster is done boiling, wait for it to cool off so you can safely handle it. You can also use gloves to protect yourself. There are two key parts to cleaning a  lobster: the claws and tail. 

How to Clean Lobster Claws

If the lobster is cooked, you are safe to handle the claws and even take off the bands. 

• Twist off the claws – First, you need to separate the claws from the lobster. To do this, you just need to twist and pull them off. 

• Pull off the small claw – The claw has a large half and a small half, so you’ll want to pull off the smaller ones since they don’t have the product we’re trying to obtain in them.

• Use a lobster cracker – Take a lobster cracker to crack the middle of the large claw. 

• Note: It’s important to use the proper tool to avoid injuries.

• Slide off the exoskeleton – Now that you have cracked open the claws’ shell, you can slide it off to access the claw meat. 

• Break the knuckles – There is still meat in the leg portion of the claws. They have one knuckle joining the two parts that you can pull apart.

• Use a lobster pick – With a lobster pick, you can pull out the remaining meat from the leg portions of the claws.

How to Clean Lobster Tails

The tail is a little easier to clean than the claws.

• Twist off the tail – To start working on the tail, we need to remove it from the lobster. This can also be done by twisting and pulling the tail off. 

• Peel off the exoskeleton – The shell should be easy enough to press on to break it apart since the lobster has been cooked. Then you can peel off the shell from the tail meat to finish cleaning. 

Need help with other food prep and cleaning? Try checking out the Parts Town blog for information on topics such as levels of steak doneness or how to properly wash your hands.