GB411163A - A process and apparatus for the preparation, cooking and canning of chickens and other poultry - Google Patents

Abstract

411,163. Dressing poultry; cooking flesh in oil. ASHBY, W. R. C., Fen Pond Farm, Ightham, Kent. Dec. 3, 1932, No. 34319. [Classes 28 (i) and 28 (ii).] Pieces of meat, or the flesh or carcases of chickens or other birds, are cooked prior to canning by contact with hot oil, e.g. groundnut oil, and air or oxygen is excluded from the food during the cooking. The oil may be sprayed or poured on to the food, and the air is excluded by the presence of an inert and innocuous gas such as carbon dioxide. As shown, carcases of chickens held in trusses as described in Specification 411,508 and suspended from a conveyer 23, slide up the shoot 30 and over a guide plate 39, from which they swing downwardly into the heated oil contained in the tank 32. Carbon dioxide is supplied from bottles 132 of compressed or liquefied gas, the gas bubbling from a submerged pipe 38 and collecting above the oil surface in the chamber 31. The air in the carcases is replaced by carbon dioxide, and, is together with air drawn through the restricted entrance between the guide 39 and the casing of the chamber 31, led away through the outlet 40. After passing through the cooking-oil, the carcases ride up the shoot 41, over a trough 42, which receives the oil draining from them, and into a washing-tank 43 containing water heated by a steam coil 44. The oil is heated by an oil-burner 130, and the scum from the washing-tank is led away through a pipe 50 to a tank 51. The conveyer 23 is trained around horizontal sprockets to rim in a horizontal plane, and the cooking and washing tanks are in a room, the conveyer passing into and out of the room through swing- ing trap doors. As the cooked carcases emerge from the room they are removed from the conveyer and the trusses are removed from the carcases. The carcases are then inserted in cans or other containers which are charged with gelatinous solution, exhausted of air, sealed, heated in retorts to complete the sterilization and then cooled. In the treatment preparatory to cooking, the carcases are carried on an endless band conveyer past stations where the operations of neck slitting, decapitating, leg cutting, gland removing, eviscerating, cleaning and trussing are effected. The neck slitting is effected by an operator holding the neck in stretched condition against a rotating disc knife, the neck being slit slantwise to facilitate the formation of a flap which is subsequently used to close the neck opening. A second operator holds the neck stretched under a decapitating guillotine, a third operator removes the legs just below the hocks by a guillotine, and a fourth operator removes the oil gland. A fifth operator removes the viscera by the device described in Specification 411,164, and the sixth and seventh clean the carcase and apply the truss respectively. The trussed carcase is then hooked on to the cooking-conveyer.