How Many Oysters are in a Bushel?

One of the most common questions we get is “how many oysters are in a bushel”.  Unfortunately, this is also the hardest question to answer because a bushel has become a very vague unit of measurement.  The word “bushel” is derived from buschel which meant a box in the 14th century, and a unit of measurement that has been around for that long is bound to see some changes. 

It is still generally accepted that a bushel is a unit of measurement for dry volume, or stuff other than liquids mainly in agriculture (like oysters).  As such, it can be further broken down into 4 pecks or 8 gallons.  The trouble comes when we refer to a bushel on the commodity markets where it is used as a unit of weight.  And bushels of different commodities weigh different amounts.  For example, a bushel of oats in the USA is 32 pounds (Canada is 34 pounds), but a bushel of barley is 48 pounds.  Malted barley is 31 pounds.  And so on and so forth.

With the oyster industry both weight and volume are used.  Some oystermen refer to a bushel as a unit of weight, usually anywhere between 45 and 60 pounds.  We measure our bushels the old way, as a unit of volume.  We fill up a wire bushel basket and then round off the top to account for any voids left by the oysters.  The weight is usually right around 50 pounds, give or take.  The problem with doing oysters by weight is that the majority of the weight of an oyster is in the shell, so if you have oysters with thick shells, you may end up with a much smaller bushel by weight.

So, back to the question, how many oysters are in a bushel?  Basically, I don’t know; I’ve never counted.  It depends on how big the oysters are and what kind of bushel you’re talking about.  The more important question is probably “how many people will a bushel of oysters feed?“.