My mother grew up in Maine, so she’s a lobster-complainer.  It’s too rubbery, it doesn’t taste like anything, my butter is solid, etc.  I wanted to make a lobster roll that even she wouldn’t put her nose up at.  So, I bought a 4 lb lobster and after a staredown, looked into the best way to kill it.  Answer: knife through the head.

From Dave Arnold’s suggestions, I decided to tranquilize it with clove oil and then sever its frontal ganglia with a knife.  This kills them instantly, thus preventing stress during the lobster’s death and leaving the muscle cleaner tasting and more tender.  So, I got some clove oil- they sell it at whole foods (I used Aura Cacia Brand).  I prepped a tank for the lobster using the cambro from my circulator, adding 3% salt.   I mixed 10ml clove oil with 90ml vodka and shook it up.  I added 2 ml/Gallon, so about 8ml and stirred a bit.   The lobster barely fit.  This was without a doubt the biggest lobster I’ve ever seen.   No response at first.  I considered adding a bit more clove oil, but wanted to stay near the low side to avoid it getting clovey.  Then slump.  Its legs gave out and it laid down on the floor.  I waited for what Dave Arnold described as ‘backward zombie walking’.  I tapped the tank a bit.  Waited. Then whoa, it’s working.  The lobster got up, walked backward into the back of the tank.  It did that for a minute or so and eventually slumped back to the bottom.   So, kill time. 

I got the lobster out of the tank and put it back on the cutting board, inside another cambro.  I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss out on any of the hemolymph, which Dave Arnold says packs a lot of the flavor.  I paced a little, tried to get a good set up, gave myself a pep talk, put the knife onto it and got nervous again.  I knew I was being stupid, but I haven’t put knives through anything’s head before, cut me a break.  I yelled at myself for being a wimp and reassured myself that this is less suffering anyway and the lobster is just having some lobster dreams and pounded the knife through the shell.  Bisect the head and wiggle it around and I’ve got a dead lobster.  That wasn’t so bad.  I start to cut it up.  I intended to cook the shell and legs in some butter and keep the tail and claws aside to bag with the shell juice. 

SHIT! It moved. 

I put the knife back in its head and wiggled a bit more. I got  nervous that I had been dissecting the lobster still partially live. I googled a bit.  This is normal,  some leftover twitching isn’t anything to worry about.  Not alive. I chopped it up and boiled down the shell and smaller bits of meat.  Then strained them and collected the lobster broth and put it through the vitamix.  A tip for this – use your citrus juicer to get all the liquid out and get ready for a mess.  I bagged the claws and tail with the lobster broth and cooked them in 90C water for about 10 minutes.  Potato rolls, mayo, dill.  They were a big hit.

For next time, I think I’ll try putting the knife into the lobster with it upside down, like this guy does. Getting the knife through the carapace was a little tricky, and a comment on cookingissues suggests that you lose less liquid that way.