PM Update: Scattered showers and thunderstorms through the early evening. Much cooler on Monday. You may have to dodge some raindrops through about 8 tonight. A cold front moves through tomorrow morning and ushers in much more seasonable weather.
Only cook live crabs, because they deteriorate very quickly after they have expired. You can simply throw the crabs in a pot of boiling water to cook them. Depending on the size of the crabs, it will take between 6 and 10 minutes for them to cook thoroughly. If the crab is alive when you start, the amount of cooking time has very little to do with safety  it s more a question of whether the meat is underdone, overdone, or cooked just right.
1 Boil them until the shells turn red, for approximately 20 minutes counting time after the water comes back to a full boil. 2  They're done! 3  Now, you can cool the crab down by either laying them out on a clean dry towel, like I have illustrated with dungeness crab.hings You Will Need To Boil Crab. Before you know how to boil crab, there's a few things you should have handy... 1  A big pot, depending on how many crab you have to boil. 2  A pot, like the picture above, can hold 2 good size whole crab. 3  The picture below shows what I use when we catch a lot of crab.