Meat deboning

Details Meat deboning Meat deboning

1996-12-16

1999-02-09

Little, Willis

Butchering

Deboning

452171, A22C 1704

Patent

active

058686134

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to removal of bones from carcass sections.
In the processing of meat sections, commercial purchasers frequently specify when ordering meat cuts that they require the meat to be shipped with the bones or certain specified bones removed. In the case of sections of meat carcass containing ribs, recovery of meat from the rib area is usually a manual operation in which meat on the outside of the ribs is progressively trimmed from the ribs. This leaves significant amounts of intercostal meat between the ribs which is subsequently removed by using a boning knife to cut down an edge of each rib and back up against the adjacent rib. These processes still leave fragments of meat attached to the ribs and these fragments are also manually recovered as low value meat scraps. Because of the high labour investment, it is quite costly to recover meat from the rib area of a carcass.
Automated or semi-automated processes for removing ribs from animal carcasses or sections of carcass have been proposed. For example, in patent specification No. PCT/AU91/00172 by the present applicants, there is described a process and apparatus for removing ribs from a carcass which has had the brisket cut but has not been split along the spine. Most abattoirs are set up to split a carcass before boning operations are commenced so that implementation of the process and apparatus described in this prior patent specification may necessitate changes in the carcass processing operations.
In patent specification Nos. PCT/NL90/00128 and PCT/NL92/00143, both in the name of Passchier, there are described processes and apparatus for separating ribs from carcass sections. The proper functioning of the apparatus in these patent specifications would appear to require substantially uniform sized pieces of carcass sections which are quite accurately located and oriented. Also the carcass sections must already have been processed so that there are substantially free extremities of the ribs at one edge of the section. In one of the two Passchier specifications, the ribs are broken along their length so that this can lead to bone splinters appearing in the meat.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a process and apparatus suitable for removing ribs from a carcass section in a mechanised way.
It is a further and preferred object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for effectively removing ribs from a carcass section and which is capable of processing standard carcass sections.
According to the present invention there is provided a process for the removal of ribs from a carcass section which contains a spine portion and a number of ribs, the ribs having dorsal ends adjacent to the spine portion and ventral extremities remote from the spine portion, the process comprising the steps of: ventral extremities of the ribs, p1 weakening tissue attachments between the grasped section of tissues and the ribs at the ventral extremities of the ribs by forming a cut transverse to each rib to weaken the attachment between the cartilage attached at the ventral extremity of each rib and the respective ventral extremity of the rib, extending generally from the ventral extremities to the dorsal ends of the ribs and away from the ventral extremities so that the grasped section of tissues separate from and thereby expose end regions of the ribs near the ventral extremities, and to the ribs so as to progressively expose the ribs along a major proportion of their lengths so as to enable separation of the exposed ribs from the tissues that have been pulled therefrom.
The process and apparatus of the present invention have been particularly developed for processing of a beef carcass section, particularly either a fore quarter section of a side of beef or an entire side of beef containing a spine portion, ribs extending from the spine portion and a brisket section adjacent the ventral extremities of the ribs. It will be convenient to generally describe the invention in relation to processing of a beef carcass rib section, bu

REFERENCES:
patent: 3122780 (1964-03-01), Segur
patent: 3553766 (1971-01-01), Herubel
patent: 4299009 (1981-11-01), Tournier
patent: 4543689 (1985-10-01), Couture
patent: 5226850 (1993-07-01), Klaasen
patent: 5295896 (1994-03-01), Petersen
patent: 5494480 (1996-02-01), Passchier

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Meat deboning does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Meat deboning, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Meat deboning will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1944866