funny this comes up at this time, were up in the islands this weekend, caught some real nice crab right at 7" well cooking on board was slow for the first crab we cooked with the shells on, so while waiting to return to a boil we cleaned the others, well to say the least, night and day nobody wanted to even touch the crab cooked with the shells on, , the crab that was cleaned first was so much sweeter, the other hand funky yellow water when you cracked into the legs, and by the way the cleaned crab was cooked in the same water as the ones with the shells on, never again with the shells on there really is a big differance, doug