Patent
1982-01-15
1985-04-23
Abercrombie, Willie G.
17 18, A22B 508
Patent
active
045120587
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a method for unhairing slaughtered cattle, especially pigs, whereby the dead body is first subjected to a warm water treatment, then roughly unhaired by means of beating and scraping tools while the body is simultaneously rotated around the longitudinal axis of the body, and after completion of this rough unhairing process, the remaining fine hairs are removed using a burner.
A similar method is disclosed in German Pat. No. 20.47.323. To shorten the unhairing period in the system disclosed in the German Patent, the body is flamed already over its whole length during the rough unhairing process carried out by the beat means. This is based on the mistaken idea that the heat of the flame results in erecting the hairs, so that the pulling of hairs out of the skin using the beat and scrape means is improved. However, practice has shown that a flame, extending over the whole length of the body, will shorten the hairs, such that the hairs will not be pulled out of the skin anymore by said beat and scrape means. In such prior methods, an increased volume of hairs had to be burnt away. Therefore a much greater volume of hair residue than is desirable would remain in the skin of the slaughtered animal.
It was already known in the prior art to start with removing the long hairs completely using said beat and scrape means. This would result in carrying out a rough unhairing process. Rough unhairing would typically be followed by removing the remaining fine hairs using a hand operated flame.
The method according to the above mentioned German Pat. No. 20.47.323 results on the one hand with a time saving in relation to said last mentioned method of using a hand operated flame. On the other hand, however, the method described in the German Patent resulted in a decrease in quality, because such a method not only leaves more hair residue in the skin than is desirable, but also the constant flame intensity over the whole length of the body will result in local overheating of sections of the body. It is more difficult to unhair the head section of a pig than the belly section. Using a constant flame jet extending over the whole length of the body is unsatisfactory because of the fact that unhairing the head section is more difficult than unhairing the belly section, and more hair has to be burnt away from the body in that method because the flame shortens the hairs and results in less hairs being pulled out by the beat and scrape means. This will typically result in a splitting of the belly section because of overheating.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method for eliminating the above mentioned problems. According to the invention, this object is reached in that fine hair removing is carried out over the whole length of the body using burners acting on various zones of the body with differences in operating time and/or strength.
The invention is thus based on the idea, which is in itself known from the German Offenlegungsschrift No. 12.98.894, that the body should be roughly unhaired completely using mechanical beat and scrape means. In that case, the majority of the hairs are pulled out of the skin, so that residue hairs will not remain on the animal's body.
Furthermore, the knowledge that it is possible to remove the remaining fine hairs using a burner plays a part in the invention. According to the prior art, one removes the fine hairs after the rough unhairing process using a hand operated burner. Said treatment however is very arbitrary and is either insufficient or results in local overheating. The person carrying out this treatment is not able to see exactly what he is doing during the burning process, and is only able to see from the result that he has to do more or that he has overdone it. If he has overdone it, the damage is beyond remedy.
According to the present invention, the operating time or the intensity, or both, of the burners acting onto different sections of the body are adapted to the local circumstances of that section of the body. In this way, damage to body
REFERENCES:
patent: 2614286 (1952-10-01), Ittel
patent: 3472499 (1969-10-01), Burch
patent: 3703744 (1972-11-01), Dillon
Abercrombie Willie G.
Machinefabriek G. J. Nijhuis B.V.
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