GB1162166A - Apparatus and methods for processing Meat-Bearing Material - Google Patents

Abstract

1,162,166 166. Separating inedible parts, e.g. bones, from meat and fish. S. KURIHARA. 3 Nov., 1966, No. 49296/66. Heading A2U. In a method and apparatus, Figs. 1 and 2, for separating edible parts from inedible parts of meat including fish, the meat is crushed between rotating, toothed rollers 11, 12, 13 and 14 in a crusher 10. The crushed meat is fed, by an endless travelling belt 19 provided with transverse plates 20, through a hopper 26 and on to a rotating drum 30 provided with perforations 33 through which small pieces of meat pass into the drum. Larger pieces, which cannot pass through the perforations, accumulate in the hopper 26, from which they are removed as inedible waste material. The small pieces of meat are discharged from the drum 30 through its outlet 29 and through a hopper 32 on to a rotating, lower drum having perforations 49 through which most of the small pieces pass into the drum 34. Pieces which do not pass through the perforations 49 are fed, by a polygonal scraper 38, Fig.3, rotating in the opposite rotational direction to the drum 34, into the nip between the upper flight of an endless, resilient, belt 114 (travelling at a speed which differs from the peripheral speed of the drum 34) and the adjacent surface of the drum 34, so that some of the pieces are crushed and further subdivided and forced through the perforations 49 into the drum 34. Hard inedible pieces such as pieces of bone which resist further subdivision are discharged from the nip, through a shoot 115, into a waste bin 40, Fig. 1. Pieces of edible meat are discharged from the drum 34, through its outlet 39 and a hopper 42, into a strainer 41 comprising a screw 45, Fig.3, rotating in a housing 47 having perforations 48, which are smaller in diameter than the perforations 49, and an outlet opening (51), Fig. 4 (not shown), whose area can be varied by the manual turning of a handle 52 attached to a pivoted lid 53. The screw 45 is rotated at high speed by a motor 55 and forces the edible meat through the perforations 48 into a receptacle 54.