Meat dewatering assembly
AssigneeWenger Manufacturing, Inc.
InventorsLaVon Wenger, Allan C. Spellmeier
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A meat dewatering assembly (10) includes a support frame (12), a twin screw dewatering unit (14), a drive assembly (16) coupled with the unit (14), and a perforated housing (60). The unit (14) has a pair of tapered, non-parallel, intermeshed, helically flighted screws (52, 54) presenting nip clearances (59) between the fighting (55). The drive assembly (16) serves to counter-rotate the screws (52, 54). In use, emulsified meat is passed into the housing (60) during counter-rotation of the screws (52, 54), in order to compress the meat within the clearances (59) and thereby express water from the meat. Adjustment collars (38) permit selective size alteration of the nip clearances (59).
Claims14
A meat dewatering assembly, comprising:
- a pair of elongated, non-parallel, tapered and intermeshed helically flighted screws, each screw presenting a longitudinal axis, said screws oriented with the included angle between the longitudinal axes thereof being from about 1-7°, the helical fighting of the screws cooperatively presenting nip clearances along the length of the screws;
- an elongated housing at least partially surrounding said helical screws with an entrance opening for emulsified meat, a series of water outlets along at least a part of the length of the housing, and a dewatered meat outlet,
- the rear end of said screws located adjacent said housing entrance, and the front end of said screws located adjacent said dewatered meat outlet, the pitch length of the helical fighting of said screws decreasing along the length of the screws between said rear and front ends;
- a drive operably coupled with said screws in order to counter-rotate the screws during operation of the dewatering assembly;
- and
- said housing configured so that as meat traverses the length of the housing the pressure within the housing is substantially atmospheric.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.