I had 4 gallon bags of frozen raw crawfish given to me and I’ve been planning to make a paste bait with them. I’m not sure if I’m too far off but my plan was to cook them for more smell then grind and add some salt to extract liquid and possibly preserve it . I’m assuming it will probably be crumbly so I’m thinking about adding corn meal to get a better texture and absorb the moisture from the salting process. I have salted fish chunks before and it seemed to change the smell of the fish some so not sure if I should use SB instead . I mostly make K9 baits and a few lures so my knowledge is limited on shellfish.

So what will this bait be intended for primarily?

Mink, coon, otter

Years ago I sold buckets of a crawdad bait I made. This is how I made it. Coarse grind fresh crawdads, add a light amount of livestock salt. This will let the crawdads age slowly and not get rank on you. When they get to the desired stage, add enough livestock salt to stop and preserve them. This was a super coon, otter and so-so mink attractor. Hope this helps you a bit.

Grind them, keep them fresh, . Depending on the weather.cold it will be fine for a week

Not freezing at night add the salt, sodium benzoate , glycerin etc when fresh.