1986-03-13
1987-12-08
Abercrombie, Willie G.
A22C 2900
Patent
active
047109998
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a device for cleaning shellfish, such as mussels, oysters and/or scallops.
When they are gathered, produced or harvested, shellfish are coated externally with colonies and deposits of lower organisms, such as algae and other such organisms, organic substances, such as mud and silt, and mineral substances, such as chalk and other incrustations. Before they are processed for consumption, or alternatively before consumption, they must therefore be cleaned.
According to the prior art, cleaning occurred previously be means of a process of brushing or scratching the undesired material off by hand. Being very time-consuming, this operation, because of its wage-intensive nature, is very costly. Because of the length of time and high costs involved, there was, more particularly in the hotel trade and in "haute cuisine" restaurants, an increasing tendency to refrain from offering such small shellfish.
In order to make it possible to offer shellfish in spite of the above and to reduce the costs incurred in cleaning them, there has also been a changeover to the practice of cleaning shellfish chemically. This entailed immersing the shellfish in a cleansing lye, and stirring them around at varying intervals in this cleansing lye in order to allow the cleansing lye to reach all parts of the outer surface of the shellfish. Even if the shellfish are rinsed off with water after such chemical cleaning, considerable doubts nonetheless exist regarding this cleaning method from the point of view of foodstuffs legislation and that of keeping the foodstuffs free from harmful substances, apart from the fact that it is impossible to avoid impairing the taste.
The invention is based on the task of creating a device for cleaning shellfish allowing for a cleaning operation which does not involve substantial labour and personnel costs, which is therefore inexpensive and thus makes it possible once again to offer shellfish for consumption and enjoyment at an acceptable price, and which is characterized by the absence of any active chemical ingredients. According to the invention, this task is solved by means of a device which is provided with a chamber designed to accommodate a quantity of shellfish, two approximately opposite walls of the chamber comprising brush wheels which can be moved in their planes in relation to one another, at least one of the brush wheels being provided with a motor, and one input and one output port being provided for rinsing fluid, or else--as an alternative--instead of one of the brush wheels, or instead of at least one of its bristle-bearing sections, rolling elements are provided, having working surfaces longitudinal to the other brush wheel, it being possible for the rolling elements to consist of rubber fingers, flexible fingers and/or blades/shovels. It is contrived by virtue of this arrangement that, as a consequence of the relative motion of the brush wheels, or alternatively of the brush wheel on the one hand and the brush sections and rolling elements on the other hand, the shellfish are circulated and rubbed against one another and simultaneously brushed off in quantities and thus, as has already been proved in practice, cleaned very intensively. Practically only pure water, such as drinking water, is suitable for use as rinsing fluid, which serves only to rinse off and away loosened impurities. Seawater can, of course, also be used, in some cases advantageously. In the case of mussels, the device can also serve, through the action of the bristles, to remove the greater part of the so-called beards, a process which it has hitherto been necessary to carry out by hand for each individual mussel.
In the case of embodiments according to the invention, the brush wheels, or alternatively the one brush wheel and the rolling elements, are mounted in such a way that they can be moved up and down in relation to one another and are subjected to pressure, or alternatively one of the brush wheels, having freedom of movement in the vertical plane, acts on the other brush wheel under the
REFERENCES:
patent: 26991 (1860-01-01), Hope
patent: 826896 (1906-07-01), Shaver
patent: 859842 (1907-07-01), Robinson
patent: 1779046 (1930-10-01), McNaney
patent: 2407819 (1946-09-01), Dolan
Brunner Josef
Ritzer Josef
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