Revolutionized tuna process
AssigneeThai Union Group Public Company Limited
InventorsTunyawat Kasemsuwan, Pieter Berends, Jaturong Kitkumjornkun, Tongkarn Kaewthasee
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Abstract
A revolutionized tuna process according to this invention generally comprising the steps of thawing of frozen tuna, de-heading and degutting, fileting, de-skinning, cleaning of the de-skinned tuna filet, pre-cooking, cooling, packing of the cleaned and pre-cooked tuna loin, and sterilizing the packed tuna loin or freezing the tuna loin. Not only does the process according to this invention reduces the energy utilization by half, it also significantly reduces the time required for cooking and cooling. Therefore, the whole processing time is significantly reduced from at least 8.0 hours in the conventional process to less than 30 minutes.
Claims12
A revolutionized tuna process, comprising the following steps:
- thawing a frozen tuna to provide a tuna;
- removing head and gut of the tuna to provide a de-headed and de-gutted tuna;
- fileting the de-headed and de-gutted tuna to separate a tuna filet from backbone and flank of the de-headed and de-gutted tuna;
- de-skinning the tuna filet to provide a de-skinned tuna filet;
- cleaning the de-skinned tuna filet to yield a raw tuna loin by removing dark meet thereof;
- precooking the raw tuna loin to provide a precooked tuna loin, wherein the precooking comprises heating the raw tuna loin with a saturated steam at a steam input of 80-180 kg/hr until a temperature of the precooked tuna loin reaches 80-100° C.;
- cooling the precooked tuna loin, wherein the cooling of the precooked tuna loin comprises directly applying to the precooked tuna loin with a cooling water until a temperature of the precooked tuna loin is about 40-45° C. followed by a cooling air until the temperature of the precooked tuna loin is about 25-35° C., and wherein cooling the precooked tuna loin is performed in a tunnel conveyor equipped with the cooling water and the cooling air;
- packing the precooked tuna loin to provide a packed tuna loin;
- and
- sterilizing the packed tuna loin or freezing the packed tuna loin,
- wherein the tuna filet is de-headed, de-gutted and de-skinned before the precooking step to reduce the precooking time and energy.
A process for processing a tuna, comprising:
- fileting a tuna to provide a tuna filet;
- removing dark meat from the tuna filet to yield a raw tuna loin;
- precooking the raw tuna loin to provide a precooked tuna loin, wherein the precooking comprises heating the raw tuna loin with a saturated steam at a steam input of 80-180 kg/hr until a temperature of the precooked tuna loin reaches 80-100° C.;
- cooling the precooked tuna loin, wherein the cooling of the precooked tuna loin comprises directly applying to the precooked tuna loin with a cooling water until a temperature of the precooked tuna loin is about 40-45° C. followed by a cooling air until the temperature of the precooked tuna loin is about 25-35° C., and wherein cooling the precooked tuna loin is performed in a tunnel conveyor equipped with the cooling water and the cooling air;
- and
- after cooling, packing the precooked tuna loin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.