Butchering – Carcass subdivision – Extremity remover
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-15
2001-11-27
Little, Willis (Department: 3643)
Butchering
Carcass subdivision
Extremity remover
C452S163000, C452S170000, C452S155000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06322438
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to automated poultry processing, particularly to an apparatus and method for use along an automated poultry processing line, to separate the thighs of poultry carcasses from the back portions of the carcasses.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In recent years, the processing of poultry has been automated so that most of the evisceration and cut-up steps are formed by mechanical devices. This has dramatically increased the speed and efficiency of poultry processing and has thus provided the consuming public with high quality poultry products at more reasonable prices.
Most of the modem poultry processing equipment is designed for use along suspended conveyor systems having a series of equally spaced depending shackles from which poultry carcasses are suspended upside down by their legs and conveyed along a processing path. Various processing machines are disposed along the processing path for operating upon the suspended carcasses progressively as they move along the path, to prepare the poultry for public sale and consumption.
A typical poultry processing line might include, for example, a vent cutter, a bird opener, an eviscerator, a neck breaker, a lung puller, and a crop remover. In addition, such processing lines might include machines for subdividing the poultry carcasses into their various commonly consumed pieces, such as breasts, backs, wings, legs and thighs.
The step of separating the poultry thigh from the back portion of the carcass is difficult to perform uniformly from bird to bird and without damaging the bone of the joint where the thigh is separated from the back portion. The muscles and tendons adjacent the joint are difficult to reach with automated cutting implements and there is a hazard that the cutting implements will chip, crack or splinter the bones as they make the cuts between the bones of the joints, leaving potentially harmful bone chips in the edible product.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. 5,188,559 issued Feb. 23, 1993, automated machines are available for separating the thighs from the back portions of birds as birds are suspended upside down by their legs and moved in sequence along a processing path. While the machines have been largely successful, there are occasions when the birds are not properly aligned as they pass through the initial cutting blades for initially cutting the tissue that holds the bones of the joints together at the thigh and the back portion of the carcass. The tissue surrounding the bones of the joint of the thigh and back must be progressively cut to open the joint, and once the joint is open, it is desirable to rotate the back portion of the bird with respect to the thighs so as to twist the socket of the back portion away from the thigh bones, while cutting the tissue that connects the thighs to the back portion. It is highly desirable that more of the meat be left on the thighs than on the back portion, since the thighs are much more valuable than the back portions. Also, it is desirable to make a perfect cut about the thigh bones after the back portions have been rotated to pull the thighs from their sockets so that the appearance of the meat clinging to the thighs is not degraded during the cutting and removing procedures.
An important aspect of achieving the perfect cut between the thigh and the back portion is control of the position of the bird as the bird progresses through the cutting and removal procedures.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and apparatus for more accurately guiding the poultry carcass to the cutters which cut through the tissue extending between the thighs and the back portions of the carcasses, and then to firmly grasp and pull the back portion of the carcass away from the thighs with a tumbling movement of the back portion so as to rotate the back portion with respect to the proximal end of the thigh bone, causing the back portion to progressively separate from the thighs and allowing the meat which can be pulled by the thighs from the back portion to remain with the thighs, thereby enhancing the weight and value of the thighs. It is to the provision of such a method and apparatus that the present invention is primarily directed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention involves an automated apparatus for separating the legs, including the thighs, from the backs of poultry carcasses as the carcasses are progressively conveyed in sequence suspended upside down by their legs on shackles along a suspended processing path. The carcasses will have been previously processed in prior stations along the processing path for the removal of the entrails and the breasts of the carcasses, so that the carcasses are received in a “saddle” configuration with their back portions, thighs and legs still attached to each other, with the carcasses being suspended by their legs, with their tails trailing behind the rest of their backs.
The apparatus includes a frame adapted to be positioned beneath the suspended conveyor system and generally along the path of movement of the poultry carcasses being processed. A cutting station mounted on the frame is adapted to receive a poultry carcass and effect a pair of incisions in the tissue of the carcasses at the location of the thigh joints of the carcasses. The cutting station includes a pair of elongated parallel fixed blades which straddle the back portions of the carcasses at positions inside each thigh as the carcasses move through the processing path, and the blades progressively sever the tissue extending about the thigh-back portion joints, through a portion of the joints, but without severing all of the tissue extending from the back portions to the thighs. This leaves the thighs and legs physically connected by tissue to the back portion. The cutters are elongated so that once the leading end portion of a cutter begins its penetration through the tendons into the joint, the trailing portion of the cutter is already aligned with the joint and can extend on into the joint for completing the initial separation of the thigh bone from the skeletal portion of the back portion of the carcass.
The cutting station also includes a surface conveyor which engages and supports the back portions of the carcasses as the joints of the carcasses are being cut. The surface conveyor includes a pair of parallel conveyor flights which form a longitudinal gap between them for receiving the back bones of the carcasses, thereby tending to align the backbones between the conveyor flights. The conveyor is operated with a surface velocity which is greater than the velocity of the shackles, creating a sliding, relative movement between the back portions of the carcasses and the flights of the conveyor, which allows the protruding backbones to seek alignment between the flights of the conveyor.
A separating station is mounted on the frame of the apparatus and is positioned to receive the poultry carcasses after they have advanced through the cutting station. The separating station functions to rotate the back portions forwardly from an inverted attitude to an upright attitude while the legs remain inverted and to pull the back portions of the carcasses downwardly away from the shackled legs and the thighs and thereby separate the bones of the thighs from the backs. The separating station includes a vertically oriented rotating separator disk that has outwardly projecting teeth positioned to engage and seize the interior of the back portions of the carcasses as they move in sequence along the processing path. As the separator disk rotates, the backs are drawn around the periphery of the disk and thus are pulled in a downward arc away from the thighs of the carcasses, while the legs and thighs remain suspended in the shackles of the suspended conveyor and continue to move horizontally. The separated backs then are deposited in a receptacle beneath the apparatus while the suspended legs and thighs continue with the shackles along the processing path for further processing. Typically, the legs and thighs will be separated from
Barendregt Gerrit
Steenbergen Wim
Wols Floris
Little Willis
Systemate Group B.V.
Thomas Kayden Horstemeyer & Risley
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