Process for producing deboned meat products

Abstract

material obtained from animals, poultry, or fish and containing edible flesh along with normally inedible relatively hard or tough components, such as bone, gristle, tendons, etc., is fed in ground condition into one end of a perforated conduit that has a conveyor screw therein which progressively decreases in conveying capacity from the feed end of the conduit to an imperforate discharge end thereof. Such inedible components are compacted within the imperforate discharge end of the conduit by an extension of the conveyor screw prior to discharge following build-up and conveyance along the interior surface of the perforate portion of the conduit as a filter mat through which edible flesh is forced toward and through the perforations of the conduit to provide a substantially bonefree edible product. The discharge passage surrounding the extension of the conveyor screw can be varied in size, preferably by a tapered ring that is movable back and forth axially of the conveyor screw extension, and preferably the spacing between conveyor screw and conduit is variable. The forward faces of the conveyor screw flights are preferably concave to provide a forwardly projecting circumferential overhang that tends to keep particles of bone near the axis of the screw, and the conduit wall thickness is unusually thick so as to withstand high pressures. Unusually high production rates can be obtained by feeding finely ground material into the conduit by means of a high pressure pump. The discharged and normally inedible components can be slurried in a digestant liquid and the digested material recovered as a food product by the application of centrifugal force. In instances where some minute particles of bone are discharged with the fleshly fleshy components, they can be homogenized by subjecting such flesh fleshy components to an attrition operation.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present de-bonding de-boning extrusion machine of the invention. It comprises a tube 11 having a conveying screw 12 therein for receiving from hopper 13 the carcass material to be de-boned and feeding it, through grinding mechanism, to the de-boning mechanism.

One end of the screw 12 is formed as a shaft 12a, and extends through a bearing 14 to connection with suitable drive means, such as a gear box 15 powered by an electric motor (not shown). The other or discharge end of the screw 12 connects in mated, separable, drive relationship with a stub shaft 16a, FIG. 4, at the feed end of a second conveyor screw 16 of compression type. Such stub shaft 16a extends through and is journaled by a perforated cutter plate 17 that forms part of the grinding mechanism. Beyond this, such stub shaft is square in cross-section, see FIG. 3, for mating with the discharge end screw 12. Fitted on such square portion of the stub shaft 16a, immediately in advance of the cutter plate 17 and bearing against the forward face thereof in shearing relationship therewith, is a multibladed knife 18 that rotates with the screws 12 and 16 and serves to cut or grind material passing from the discharge end of feed screw 12 into the receiving end of compression screw 16.

Compression screw 16 is preferably snugly but not tightly fitted into the separation chamber defined by and within a perforated conduit 19 of circular cross-stcion. Such conduit has a receiving end 19a that is preferably demountably connected, as by means of a threaded coupling 20, with the discharge end of feed tube 11, and has an imperforate discharge end 19b that is telescopically connected, as by the screw threads shown, with the receiving end 21a of an imperforate, open-ended, tapered, discharge ring 21 that forms part of a discharge valve arrangement.

Conduit 19 is preferably perforated about its complete circumference and longitudinally a distance covering several convolutions of the screw 16. Its wall is heavy enough to withstand the considerable pressure employed during the de-bonding de-boning operation. For a conduit made from AD150 grade stainless steel, specially hardened by heat treatment to withstand severe abrasive forces, and having a perforated area three inches in length (5000 uniformly spaced holes each 40/1000 of an inch in diameter) and tapering from an inside diameter of three and one-half inches at the feed end to three and five sixteenths inches at the discharge end, a wall thickness of one-quarter of an inch has been found satisfactory under all conditions of use. Generally speaking, a wall thickness less than one-eighth of an inch is too light, while more than one-quarter of an inch is uneconomical for any of the embodiment apparatus of the invention. Circumferential flanges 19c are preferably provided at opposite ends, respectively, of the perforated area as guides for the extruded meat product.

Both conduit 19 and its coacting compression screw 16 are preferably tapered from feed end to discharge end, as just indicated, to provide for positioned adjustment of such screw in the conduit to compensate for wear and to provide variations in spacing from conduit wall surface at as may be desired. The taper may be slight, e.g. from 5% to 10% or may be great so that the configuration is more conical than it is cylindrical. In any even, the spiral valleys 16b between flights 16c of such screw 16 become progressively more shallow, so the screw progressively decreases in conveying capacity and acts with increasing force to press the conveyed material outwardly against the perforate wall of conduit 19.

As soon as the feed material from grinder 10 enters the smaller diameter de-boning conduit 19 in ground condition, is it is pressed outwardly under moderate pressure. Such pressure progressively increases as the material travels along the length of screw 16. The pressure causes fibrous boney bony material to mat, albeit thinly, at the inner wall of conduit 19 and across perforations 22 before any significant quantity of the relatively soft meat material can escape, and thereby immediately commences to filter boney bony material from such soft meat materials as the latter is squeezed from the valleys 16b through the mat and thence through the perforations 22. The mat progressively increases in the thickness along the length of the screw and is carried along the the screw to the discharged end of the separation chamber, where it is forced into and through the previously mentioned discharged valve arrangement 23.

Such valve arrangement comprises a tapered discharge extension 16d of compression screw 16 that projects beyond perforated conduit 19 and extends along the passage formed by the imperforate discharge end 19b of perforate conduit 19 and by the telescope discharged ring 21. Between such elements 19b and 21 and the tapered discharge extention 16d of compression screw 16 is formed a restricted, annular, discharge passage 24, through which the final mat of boney bony material passes in discharging from the machine.

Discharge ring 21 has an interior taper that is slightly greater than the taper of discharge extension 16d of screw 16, so that, as the end 21a of the ring is screwed farther into the imperforate discharge end 19b of conduit 19, the size of the anular annular discharge passage 24 of valve 23 is decreased. This passage thus provides a variable restriction to flow of the mat of boney bony material. The pressure in the separating chamber will be dependent upon the size of this discharge passage 24 as determined by the position of discharge ring 21. Thus, it is apparent that both the edible meat components and the normally inedible boney bony material components are separately extruded from the machine under the control of ring 21 serving as an adjustable discharge valve element.

Extension 16d, as illustrated, FIG. 2, advantageously has a smooth outer face and channels 23a extending longitudinally to form screw flights and valleys therebetween for the elongate, annular, discharge passage 24 of the valve. Such passage 24, as indicated, preferably has an initial chamber portion 24a that feeds into the portion defined by the discharge ring 21 by way of an abrupt annular shoulder 21b, thereby establishing an elastic ring or choke of bony bony material in such chamber portion 24a that tends to compensate for variations in percentage of boney bony components in the material being de-boned.

A reversible ratchet is advantageously employed to screw discharge ring 21 farther into or farther out of conduit 19. For this purpose, such ring 21 is formed as a ratchet wheel with notches 25 about its exterior periphery. An operating ring 25 26 fits around discharge ring 21 and is rotatable relative thereto by means of a handle 26a. Resiliently biased in conventional manner within a knob member 26b of such operating ring 26 is a pawl 27. To reverse the pawl so that discharge ring 21 can be screwed in a reverse direction, it is only necessary to turn knob member 26b, as is customary in ratchet construction of this type, there being no need to go into further detail in view of the well known nature of this mechanism.

For both journaling the discharge end of compression screw 16 and enabling its position within conduit 19 to be adjusted to compensate for wear or to increase or decrease the spacing between conveyor screw and conduit, a plate 28 equipped with a central bearing 29 is rigidly supported in fixed spaced relationship with discharge ring 21 by means of pins 30 extending longitudinally from fixed securement in flange 19c of conduit 19. The discharge end of extension 16d of compression screw 16 is reduced in diameter and provided with a stub shaft extension 31 FIG. 2, having a journal portion flanked by threaded portions on which are respective adjusting nuts 32 and 33. These nuts are normally cinched tightly against bearing 29 to prevent axial movement of compression screw 16, but when wear of the flights 16c has increased the desirable tolerance between screw and conduit it is only necessary to loosen nut 33 and tighten nut 32 to effect the adjustment. This arrangement also permits such tolerance to be increased or decreased as may be desired.

Often fleshly fleshy muscle material passing through perforations 22 of conduit 29 19 is fibrous and exerts a strong drag on the material being transported axially of compression screw 16 toward discharge passage 24. In order to eliminate or significantly ease this drag and so increase through-put capacity of the machine, it is somtimes sometimes advantageous to position one or more knife blades across the flights of the screw, so as to extend axially of the screw at the outer periphery of such flights. Thus, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, knives 34 and 35 are freely inset into receiving notches 36 in the flights 16c of the compression screw 16 of this alternative embodiment of the de-boning machine with the back of each knife abutting the back 36a of its notch, the blade resting on the upwardly sloping bottom of the notch, and the sharp edge bearing lightly against the inner wall of the conduit 19 in shearing relationship with the edges of perforation perforations 22. The shearing angle should be small to prevent or minimize scoring of such inner wall of conduit 19.

In operation, the knives 34 will cut the fibers that create drag, but it will not destroy the filter mat that covers the perforations exposed to the valleys 16b between fights flights.

In this connection, attention is called to the double meat grinder of Ardrey U.S. Pat. No. 2,841,197, which has a somewhat similar construction, but is not intended nor adapted for the de-boning of meat that is ground together with boney bony components.

In accordance with the process of the invention as depicted diagrammatically in the flow sheet of FIG. 10, raw carcass material is ground before being fed into the de-boning machine, which separates a high proportion of the relatively soft fleshly components from the harder boney bony components. The former constitute a finished meat product; the latter, in matted form, can be used for both stock or animal feed or can be processed further, as indicated by broken lines, by digestion of protein constituents through the addition of a protein digestant and by passage through a centrifuge to eliminate undigested boney bony components.

In instances where higher de-boning pressures are used, by setting of the discharge valve of the de-boning machine to narrow the discharge passage 24, so that more bone particles pass through the filter mat that can be tolerated in a commercial meat product, the resuling resulting inferior meat product is passed through a colloid mill or other apparatus for effecting homogenization by attrition to produce a stabilized colloidal meat emulsion in which the bone partiales particles have been so disintegrated as to be harmless.

It has been found that enormously increased throughput, without significant decrease in de-boning effectiveness, can be achieved by forced feed of finely ground meat or fish materials into the de-boning conduit under pressure, usually accomplished by means of a pump, and that other features to be described improve the effectiveness of the machine.

In the embodiment of FIGS. 11-14 a slurry of meat or fish material ground in standard equipment, e.g. a high pressure extrusion type grinder whose extrusion passages are each 5/16ths or 3/8th of an of an inch in diameter, is run into a hopper 40 equipped with double mixing screws 41 and 41a to keep the solids in suspension. The lower screw 41a feeds the slurry into the intake end of any suitable pump 42, for example a rotary vane, stainless steel, pet food pump as marketed by Autio Equipment Company, Astoria, Oreg., having its working parts specially hardened against bone abrasiveness. A conduit 42a conducts pump discharge into the feed end of the de-boning conduit 43, see especially FIG. 13, under pressure that may vary between about 5 to 250 lbs./sq. in., depending upon volume and character of feed and speed of rotation of the conveyor compression screw.

The conveyor compression screw 44 is similar to the corresponding screw 16 in the previous embodiments, but its stub shaft portion 44a is journaled in an imperforate entry section 45 of the perforated de-boning conduit 43 and connects with drive means 46 housed below hopper 40; also, the forward faces of its flights are made concave, as at 44b, to provide respective over-hanging, forwardly facing, peripheral members 44c that tend to force fragments of boney bony material toward the axis of the screw. Perforated conduit 43 corresponds to conduit 19 of the previous embodiments, as do other components of the de-boning mechanism, including the discharge ring 47 and ratchet ring and handle 48 of the discharge valve. However, the compression-screw-journaling plate 49, and longitudinally extending supporting members 50, and imperforate discharge end 51 of conduit 43 are preferably made as a single casting, as shown, rather than separately as in the previous embodiments and are secured to the end of conduit 43 as by means of screw 52. Moreover, the attenuate pins of the previous embodiments have been replaced by the relatively wide members 50 to provide increased strength.

In order to enable precise adjustment of the discharge valve opening of conduit 43, a scale 53 is marked circumferentially around a rearwardly extending rim 47a of discharge ring 47 and a correlated scale 54 is marked longitudinally along one of the stationary supporting members 50.

The several new features noted for the embodiments of FIGS. 11-14 can be incorporated in the embodiment of FIGS. 1-9 if desired.

Whereas this invention is here described and illustrated with respect to certain preferred forms thereof, it is to be understood that many variations are possible without departing from the inventive concepts particularly pointed out in the claims.

Claims

1. A process for de-boning meat or fish materials containing soft fleshy matter and boney bony components, comprising the steps of introducing such a material into a perforated conduit that has a feed end and a discharge end and contains a rotary compression screw progressively decreasing in conveying capacity from feed end to discharge end; forming and maintaining a filter mat of boney bony components on the inside surface of the perforated conduit by operating said screw to force soft fleshy matter through the perforations of said conduit while retaining boney bony components against the inner surface of the conduit, and by maintaining sufficient clearnce between said screw and said perforated conduit to maintain a thin coating of said bony components between said screw and said conduit; compacting boney bony components into a tapered nonperforate section at the discharge end of the conduit; varying the cross-sectional area of said tapered section to govern the pressure exerted on the material within said conduit; and discharging the compacted boney bony components at said discharge end of the conduit.

2. A process according to claim 1, wherein the filter mat includes boney bony components collected within the valleys between the flights of the compression screw, said filter mat increasing in thickness and being moved along the said valleys toward the discharge end continuously as the process continues.

3. A process according to claim 1, including the step of comminuting the meat material before introducing it into the perforated conduit.

4. A process according to claim 1, including the additional step of slurrying the discharged compacted boney bony components in a protein digestant liquid; and separating the resulting slurry into digested material and undigested material by centrifugal force.

5. A process according to claim 1, including the additional step of homogenizing by attrition any boney bony components that are forced through the filter mat and perforations along with the soft flesy fleshy material, so as to render said boney bony components edible, said attrition being applied to the soft fleshy material and any bony components that are forced through the filter mat and perforations with the fleshy material.

6. A de-boning process according to claim 1, wherein the material to be de-boned is introduced into the perforated conduit by pumping.

7. A process of de-boning meat or fish materials that have been ground together with boney components thereof, comprising forming a filter mat of boney components of such material; passing relatively soft fleshy components of the material through said filter mat, whereby boney materials are filtered therefrom; and recovering the de-boned, relatively soft, edible components separately from the boney components.

8. A process according to claim 7, wherein the ground material is subjected to pressure against a perforated plate, while passing said material from a location of feed to a location of discharge, whereby the filter mat of boney components is built up against said perforate plate and the fleshy components are passed through said filter mat and through the perforations of said plate; and passing the filter mat along with the material to and through said location of discharge.

9. A process according to claim 8, wherein the pressure is varied from time to time during the course of the operation, depending upon the character of the material to be de-boned.

10. A process of producing a meat or fish product from unboned carcass material, comprising grinding said material; de-boning the ground material in accordance with claim 7; slurrying the recovered boney components of said material in a protein digestant liquid; and separating digested material from undigested material by subjecting the resulting slurry to centrifugal force.

11. A process of producing a meat or fish product, comprising deboning the material as specified in claim 7, the pressure utilized for passing the fleshy components through the filter mat being so great that some of the boney components of the meat material pass through the filter mat and are mixed with the recovered fleshy components; and wherein the recovered fleshy components are thereafter homogenized by attrition to render the contained boney components

edible. 12. A process of de-boning meat or fish materials that have been ground together with bony components thereof, comprising forming a filter mat of bony components of such ground material; passing relatively soft fleshy components of the ground material through said filter mat, whereby bony components are filtered therefrom, and recovering the de-boned, relatively soft, fleshy components separately from the bony components; said ground material being subjected to pressure against a perforated plate, while passing said material from a location of feed to a location of discharge, whereby the filter mat of bony components is built up against said perforated plate and the fleshy components are passed through said filter mat and through the perforations of said plate; and passing the filter mat to and through said location of discharge; said perforated plate being in the form of a perforated conduit; said pressure being produced by rotating a rotary compression screw contained within said conduit while maintaining sufficient clearance between said screw and said perforated conduit to maintain a thin coating of said bony components

between said screw and said conduit. 13. A process according to claim 12, wherein the pressure is varied from time to time during the course of the operation, depending upon the character of the material to be de-boned. 14. A process of producing a meat or fish product from unboned carcass material, comprising grinding said material; de-boning the ground material in accordance with claim 12; slurrying the recovered bony components of said material in a protein digestant liquid, and separating digested material from undigested material by subjecting the resulting slurry to centrifugal force. 15. A process for producing a meat or fish product, comprising deboning the material as specified in claim 12, the pressure utilized for passing the fleshy components through the filter mat being so great that some of the bony components of the meat material pass through the filter mat and are mixed with the recovered fleshy components; and wherein the recovered fleshy components are thereafter homogenized by attrition to render the contained bony components edible. 16. A process of de-boning meat or fish materials that have been ground together with bony components thereof, comprising forming a filter mat of bony components of such ground material; passing relatively soft fleshy components of the ground material through said filter mat, whereby bony components are filtered therefrom, and recovering the de-boned, relatively soft, fleshy components separately from the bony components; said ground material being subjected to pressure against a perforated plate, while passing said material from a location of feed to a location of discharge, whereby the filter mat of bony components is built up against said perforated plate and the fleshy components are passed through said filter mat and through the perforations of said plate; and passing the filter mat to and through said location of discharge; said perforated plate being in the form of a perforated conduit; said pressure being produced by rotating a rotary compression screw contained within said conduit while maintaining sufficient clearance between said screw and said perforated conduit to maintain a thin coating of said bony components between said screw and said conduit, said clearance being maintained on the order to four one-thousandths of an inch. 17. A process for de-boning meat or fish materials containing soft fleshy matter and bony components, comprising the steps of introducing such a material into a perforated conduit that has a feed and a discharge end and contains a rotary compression screw progressively decreasing in conveying capacity from feed end to discharge end; forming and maintaining a filter mat of bony components of the inside surface of the perforated conduit by operating said screw to force soft fleshy matter through the perforations of said conduit while retaining bony components against the inner surface of the conduit, and by maintaining sufficient clearance between said screw and said perforated conduit to maintain a thin coating of said bony components between said screw and said conduit, said clearance being maintained on the order of four one-thousandths of an inch; compacting bony components into a tapered non-perforate section at the discharge end of the conduit; varying the cross-sectional area of said tapered section to govern the pressure exerted on the material within said conduit; and discharging the compacted bony components at said discharge end of the

conduit. 18. A process for de-boning meat or fish materials containing soft fleshy matter and bony components, comprising the steps of introducing such a material into a perforated conduit that has a feed and a discharge end and contains a rotary compression screw progressively decreasing in conveying capacity from feed end to discharge end; forming and maintaining a filter mat of bony components on the inside surface of the perforated conduit by operating said screw to force soft fleshy matter through the perforations of said conduit while retaining bony components against the inner surface of the conduit, and by maintaining sufficient clearance about four one-thousandths of an inch between said screw and said perforated conduit to maintain a thin coating of said bony components between said screw and said conduit; compacting bony components into a tapered non-perforate section at the discharge end of the conduit; varying the cross sectional area of said tapered section to govern the pressure exerted on the material within said conduit; and discharging the compacted bony components at said discharge end of the

conduit. 19. A process for de-boning meat or fish materials containing soft fleshy matter and bony components, comprising the steps of grinding the fish or meat material to produce ground material, separately pumping the ground material at a pressure between about 5 to 250 pounds per square inch into the feed end of a perforated conduit that also has a discharge end and contains a rotary compression screw progressively decreasing in conveying capacity from feed end to discharge end; forming and maintaining a filter mat of bony components on the inside surface of the perforated conduit by operating said screw to force soft fleshy matter of said ground material through the perforations of said conduit while retaining bony components of said ground material against the inner surface of the conduit, and by maintaining sufficient clearance between said perforated conduit and the flights of said screw to maintain a thin coating of said bony components between said conduit and said flights of said screw; compacting bony components into a tapered non-perforate section at the discharge end of the conduit; varying the cross-sectional area of said tapered section to govern the pressure exerted on the material within said conduit; and discharging the compacted bony components at said discharge end of the conduit.