Butchering – Skinning
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-12
2001-07-24
Little, Willis (Department: 3643)
Butchering
Skinning
C452S127000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06264542
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to meat skinning devices and particularly to a device for removing the skin from sectioned pieces of poultry, such as for example, bone-in thigh and split breasts.
BACKGROUND OF RELATED ART
Over the last few decades, the fast food and restaurant business has greatly increased the use of poultry products to meet the demand of its customers. Many new product forms have arisen wherein the outer skin is removed from the underling meat portion before the product is prepared or processed further. This skinning of poultry product had largely been done manually in the industry at significant labor intensive cost, the potential for accidental injury, and at a certain level of inconsistency of performance naturally attendent with any manual chore of this type.
The prior art includes various forms of skinning machines designed to remove the skin from fish product or animal meat. One example of a membrane removal apparatus for meat products is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,710. This machine includes a knife edge and gripper roll provided with elongate rows of parallel serrations to strip membrane from steaks and the like and mentions using a similar apparatus for pork bellies. Similar machines are used to skin pieces of poultry product wherein the knife edge cuts or slices the product to remove the skin from the product prior to gripping the loosened skin. However, this type of apparatus tends to cut into the underlying meat and results in a loss of yield of the underlying meat.
Therefore, these prior art machines are not well-suited for skinning poultry product because the nature of the skin and the texture of the meat is not satisfactorily adapted for the same treatment or handling as fish and/or animal meat products. Therefore the poultry industry has continued to experience problems associated with automatic skinning of poultry products, such as lower yields, which have not heretofore been solved by those of ordinary skill in the art.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE
The present invention relates to an automated poultry skinning apparatus which effectively and efficiently removes the skin from pieces of poultry product in a manner which does not significantly damage or waste the underlying meat portions.
The apparatus of the present invention includes a supporting frame, a feed inlet and discharge outlet, and a skinning station mounted to the frame between the inlet and outlet. The skinning station comprises an endless belt type conveyor which is mounted to the frame in a vertical movable relationship to both advance the product past the skinning station and apply a controlled hold down pressure on the product against a gripper roll and pinch block arrangement mounted below the conveyor. This combination cooperates to assure that the outer skin is effectively gripped or entrapped while the underlying meat is essentially uneffected to peel all the skin from the meat portion rather than attempting to cut or slice the skin from the underlying meat.
The gripper roll is provided with a plurality of raised surfaces or fins which may be in the form of longitudinally extending ridges or raised projections. The raised portions are preferably configured to avoid ripping or tearing of the poultry skin as this will tend to disrupt the desired “peeling” effect wherein all of the skin portion is pulled from the underlying meat section essentially in one piece.
Therefore it is an aspect of the present invention to provide a poultry skinning apparatus which efficiently and effectively pulls the outer skin from the underlying meat portion of the poultry product in a single piece.
It is another aspect of the present invention to provide a method of skinning a poultry product wherein the skin of a piece of poultry product is engaged and trapped under controlled degree of pressure or force to cause the skin to be peeled from the whole piece of poultry product without significant damage to the underlying meat.
It is another aspect of the present invention to provide an apparatus of the type described having the advancing conveyor pivotally mounted on the frame such that the forward end facing the product feed inlet automatically adjusts to receiving product within a range of different sizes while maintaining a downward force within a selected range on the piece of poultry product against the gripper roll.
REFERENCES:
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patent: 3769903 (1973-11-01), Greider
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patent: 4359807 (1982-11-01), Adkinson et al.
patent: 4466344 (1984-08-01), Schill
patent: 4551885 (1985-11-01), Molnar
patent: 5236323 (1993-08-01), Long et al.
patent: 5395283 (1995-03-01), Gasbarro
patent: 5503593 (1996-04-01), Schill
patent: 5609519 (1997-03-01), Townsend
patent: 213829 (1984-09-01), None
patent: 4121282 (1993-01-01), None
Kremblas, Jr. Francis T.
Little Willis
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