Butchering – Sausage making – Casing handling
Patent
1991-09-05
1993-06-08
Little, Willis
Butchering
Sausage making
Casing handling
452 37, 335443, A22C 1300
Patent
active
052174042
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The subject of the present invention is a process for the calibration, length measurement and packaging of portions of intestine used in pork butchery and an apparatus for carrying it out. It is customary, in the pork butchery sector, to use intestines of various animals, such as sheep or pigs, to form casings serving for making sausages or sausagemeat.
The processing of an intestine is divided into several phases:
The first phase involves drawing and cleaning the intestine immediately after the slaughtering of the animal, to avoid any risk of microbial growth and fermentation.
The second phase involves carrying out the scraping of the inner wall of the intestine, that is to say removing a so-called mucous layer from it, and the scraping of the outer part of the intestine which has a protective membrane, in order to preserve only the muscular central part composed of two planes of smooth white fibres.
The third phase involves carrying out the calibration of the intestine as a function of its diameter. In fact, an intestine varies in diameter and quality over its entire length, these two parameters themselves varying with the age, breed, feeding method and rearing system of the animals. The calibration operation is carried out, in a known way, by inflating the intestine with water or air in order to measure its diameter. When water is used, this is displaced 50 cm each time in order to measure the diameter of the various successive portions. When air is used, the intestine is inflated over its entire length, its natural convolutions making it possible to keep it within the operator's field of vision. It is the operator's job to detect the diameter of the intestines and the changes in diameter visually.
To make his analysis easier, the operator can use a gauge consisting, for example, of a sliding calliper. At the same time as he determines the diameter, the operator must eliminate those parts of the intestines which are torn or have holes and must classify the portions of intestine according to various quality criteria in terms of the appearance of the tissue and its strength. As an example, it may be mentioned that the diameter of a sheep's intestine is calibrated by 2 mm, of a pig's small intestine by 2 mm or by 3 mm, depending on the particular country, of a cow's small intestine at by 3 mm and of a pig's or cow's large intestine by 5 mm.
The fourth phase in the processing of the intestine involves packaging the latter according to its size and quality, this packaging in predetermined lengths being carried out in the form of cured, dry or briny hanks or by folding on a support, such as a rigid tube or an elongate support of flexible synthetic material.
These four successive phases in the processing of the intestine are carried out independently of one another and empirically, the quality of the end result being governed essentially by the experience of the particular operator. It is therefore very difficult to obtain a product of constant quality, the curers often complaining that the preparers commit calibration errors.
The object of the present invention is to overcome these disadvantages by providing a process and an apparatus for carrying out this process, making it possible to automate the last two phases in the processing of the intestine, these being the most difficult, by carrying out completely objective measurements ensuring a high uniformity in the sizes of the packaged portions of intestines and an exact length at the packaging stage.
For this purpose, this process involves continuously and successively carrying out the measurement of the diameter of a portion of intestine, the measurement of the length of the latter and then its packaging in one or more containers or on one or more supports corresponding to one or more diameters measured during the calibration operation, the measurement of the length of the portion of intestine being carried out by taking into account the length of the parts of different diameters, with integration of the length of intestine packaged in each container or on
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Boyauderie des Alpes
Little Willis
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