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AssigneeTownsend Engineering Company
InventorsMart Kobussen, Jos Kobussen, Jaap Kobussen, David L. Davison
Estimating the term…
A conveyor assembly for moving an extruded strand of sausage (26) from an extruding machine (10) and for coagulating the outer surface (28) of the strand (26) has first (48) and second (49) conveyor elements mounted on a frame (36). The conveyor assembly on the frame (36) moves from a point of beginning (38) to a discharge station (40) and thence back to the point of beginning (38). A brine fluid circuit is disposed on the frame above the conveyor with a plurality of discharge nozzles thereon to spray brine on a strand of sausage moving with the conveyor assembly. A pair of laser lights (88) project beams (90) on the unlinked strand (26) to determine the diameter thereof. A signal is sent from the lasers to a controller (92) who compares the diameter of the strand to a predetermined diameter. The controller controls a meat emulsion pump (14) and causes it to increase or decrease its meat discharge rate to compensate for variations in diameter, and hence weight, between the measured strand and the predetermined strand on file in the controller.
A method of producing an extruded sausage, comprising the steps of extruding a strand of unlinked sausage by means of a pump, sensing the weight per unit length of the strand by sensing the outside diameter thereof, comparing the sensed diameter to that of a strand having a predetermined diameter and predetermined weight per unit length, determining any plus or minus variance between the measured diameter and increasing or decreasing, respectively, the rate of discharge of sausage by the pump to adjust the diameter of a subsequently extruded strand to that of a strand having the predetermined diameter.
A method of producing a co-extruded sausage, comprising the steps of,
A method for producing co-extruded sausage including the steps of co-extruding a layer of casing forming material around a strand of meat material to form a strand of sausage, coagulating said casing forming material and linking said strand of sausage, the method further including the step of determining the weight consistency of said strand of sausage before said linking.
A method according to claim wherein said assessment of weight consistency being performed with the use of sensing means to determine the weight of a predefined length of sausage.
An apparatus for producing co-extruded sausage comprising a co-extruder having an infeed and outfeed end, a supply of casing forming material and a supply of foodstuff connected to said infeed end to form a strand of co-extruded sausage from said outfeed end, and having means to determine weight consistency of said strand of co-extruded sausage close to said outfeed end.
An apparatus for producing co-extruded sausage, comprising, a coextruder for extruding a sausage strand having an inner core and a casing forming material on the outer surface thereof, a meat pump means connected to the co-extruder and a source of sausage material and casing forming material, a conveyor downstream from the co-extruder to receive the extruded sausage strand, and having a discharge end, means on the conveyor for providing a coagulation solution to the extruded strand, a sensor means adjacent the discharge end of the conveyor for determining the weight per unit length of the sausage strand, controller means connected to the sensor means for comparing the measured weight of the strand to a predetermined desired weight, the controller being operationally connected to the pump means to adjust a flow of meat from the pump to compensate for any variance between the measured weight of the strand and the said predetermined desired weights during the continued operation of the apparatus.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.