CHAPTER VIICOOLERS.

Meat Chilling — Dividing Beef Coolers — Regular Temperatures — Main Cooler — Handling Beef — Fore-Cooler — Heavy Cattle — Domestic Beef — Trimming of Beef — Skirt Trimming — Ribbing Beef — Freezing Beef — Loading Beef — Weighing and Tagging — Care of Coolers — Mutton and Veal — Chilling Hogs — Cellars — Freezing Meat.

—Meat chilling must be done intelligently with opportunity afforded for gradual chilling without too rapid hardening. The meat should not be subjected to sudden contracting low temperature effects, but to a gradual tempering that will carry the meat from blood heat down to the desired temperature. This effect is readily attained by properly constructed chill rooms. Air circulation is the great requisite.

Sufficient attention has not been paid in the past to provide ample room above the hanging carcass, that is space between the carcass and the underside of pan loft. Note slope on spray loft inFig. 17(Chap. IV), showing design of Balanced Brine System. Coil lofts should follow the same principle.

—Regarding the subject of dividing beef coolers to avoid freshly killed animals from being brought into contact with chilled ones. This is a disputed point, but it would seem that if space were available it would be a benefit to provide for it. Any moisture that might be given off from the freshly killed animal would, upon coming in contact with the chilled one naturally condense, and moisture is a detriment to the preservation of meats. Thenature of the business being conducted and the length of time it might be desired to store the meat should be considered.

—Temperature is the all important feature in meat preservation. The best practice appears to be, for beef in domestic meat trade, to reduce the temperature to 34° F. as quickly as possible and endeavor to maintain it at a uniform temperature.

—When these rooms are being filled from the fore cooler they should be held to a maximum temperature of 38° F. As soon as the filling of the cooler is finished the refrigeration should be turned on full force with a view to bringing the temperature down to 34° F. in twelve to fifteen hours after the cooler is closed. While it might be possible to bring it down in much less time it is not advisable; neither should it be longer than this. At the end of twenty-four hours for domestic shipment or city sales, the cooler should be held at a temperature of 34° F.

—When the beef is ready to go into coolers it is supposedly well dressed and absolutely clean. Such being the case, care should be taken to see that the carcasses, as they are moved along the rails, are kept bone to bone, or back to back, for if they are thrown in promiscuously (as more or less blood will run out of the kidneys if run together, one front against another back of beef) they will certainly become discolored. The beef should be handled speedily and with as little jerking and throwing around as possible, for when handled roughly veins will purge more or less and the beef, even though clean, will be highly colored.

The sides of beef should be placed at least a foot apart in the preliminary or fore-cooler. They should be placed so that under no condition does one side of meat touch the other, for if it does touch it will show an unchilled spot on the beef, which disfigures it.

Beef should always, if possible, be hung a foot apart the first twenty-four hours; later it can be hung closer without detriment, although it should not be allowed to touch.

—When a fore-cooler is used beef should be held in the fore-cooler, which consists of one-third of thelength of the cooler cut off by a partition or a separate room, a large amount of the moisture and animal heat that is left in the carcass is here abstracted. When killing choice cattle it is advisable to have the temperature of the fore-cooler as near 38° F. as possible, 43° F. is not detrimental. Sides of heavy cattle should hang at least eighteen inches apart in order that the air may circulate freely around the carcasses; lighter cattle may be hung closer.

—The room temperature of this secondary cooler can be safely reduced to 25° F., before filling. The maximum temperature should not rise above 40° F. It is dependent upon the quantity of product placed in the cooler, the excellence of the air circulation, the quantity of cooling surface such as sheets, sprays, brine or ammonia pipe and the quantity and temperature of ammonia gas or brine in use. The possibilities can be ascertained by test and practice established from this. Within twelve hours after killing the beef should be in storage reduced to 36°, and further to 33 to 34° F. as quickly as possible and maintained thereat until the beef is disposed of.

Meat which is intended for freezing purposes should be thoroughly chilled before being sent to the freezers, as it not only aids in the freezing of the beef, but it has a much better appearance when it comes from the freezer if it is properly chilled before being frozen.

—These held in the main coolers should be reduced to a lower temperature. Heavy cattle for domestic trade should be carried at 32° F. for the first twenty-four hours; after which 34° is not detrimental.

Export cattle for chilled beef shipment should be reduced to a temperature of 29° F. as quickly as possible and held there until loaded in cars or on boat.

—For domestic beef the coolers should be brought to a temperature of 34° F. in twelve hours after they are filled, not allowing the temperature to drop below that point. It is true that in extremely cold weather it can not always be avoided, and oftentimes in transit it is lower than that in the cars, but it is not well to permit beef to reach that temperature if it can be avoided. If coolers are properly handled and have a good circulation, and beef is put in at theabove temperature and allowed to remain forty-eight to seventy-two hours, it will be found to be in excellent condition and the chances of “bone-sour” will be practically eliminated, although it is impossible to always prevent it.

—While this is an item of which little can be said, it is one which merits consideration where one is doing a large volume of business. The necks of cattle are trimmed to make them look smooth and even, cutting off the ragged ends. On large cattle there are two or three pounds of brisket fat in each animal. When oleo oil is high and beef is low it is advisable to cut this fat out; when the conditions are reversed it is profitable to leave it in.

—On export beef it is advisable to trim out part of the skirts as usually the skirt in the beef is the first place where moisture will accumulate. If the skirt is removed entirely, this accumulation is prevented, and mould stops.

The hanging tenderloin is supposed to be cut out on export beef, and if the man cutting it out cuts it from the kidneys, slanting toward the backbone, on a hundred cattle he can easily leave in quite an amount of weight which sells at beef price; if cut out it would be worth only sausage price.

—If the beef is ribbed properly it shows to the best advantage; if improperly ribbed it does not, and the buyer’s opinion of its value depends largely upon its appearance. Ribbing shows the quality of the beef to a large extent, hence it is very essential that it should be done properly. The secret of ribbing is to follow close, without uncovering, the top part of the lower rib on the plate, following down gradually between the two ribs to the point in the backbone where the vertebra is the thinnest, bringing the knife across perfectly level. Beef should hang in the proper temperature for forty-eight hours before shipment. It should not be ribbed prior to that unless absolutely necessary, as it has not sufficiently set, hence the outer layers of beef will slip and give the cut beef a bad appearance, the object being to show as much meat as possible when the beef is ribbed and as little backbone. The exact place to cut probably does not exceed one-half inch wide, hence it will be seen that it requires skill to do it rapidly and properly.

—Beef prepared for freezing should be handled as if for chilling or export and at the end of thirty-six hours the coolers should be reduced to as low temperature as consistent, until the beef is transferred to freezing chambers. If a plant is constructed for freezing beef it is preferable to set aside and prepare spaces for freezing independent of the chill rooms. The freezing temperature should be maintained at zero or below, and if the meat is to be kept for a long time it should be stored in 12° to 15° above zero temperature.

—The cars must be properly iced prior to loading and the temperature in the cars brought down to the right point. It is generally customary to ice the cars one day before loading, as a car should never be loaded that is not 38° F. or lower when the doors are opened. In the loading, if it is a warm day, the temperature will creep up much higher, but the beef coming out of a temperature of 34° or 35° F. carries a great deal of cold with it, so to speak, and even though the cars may be 50° to 60° F. the cold beef, combined with the refrigeration from the ice compartments of the car, will bring the temperature down rapidly. Cars, of course, should be thoroughly cleaned and aired out prior to the icing, so that when they are open they are perfectly clean as well as of the proper temperature. Beef should be put into the cars as fast as it comes from the coolers, not being allowed to hang on the rails and be exposed before being placed in the refrigerator car. Great care should be used in hanging the beef, that it is hung perfectly solid and wedged tightly otherwise with the motion of the car the beef will become chafed and a bone from one quarter of meat will mangle and tear the meat on the quarter hanging next to it, often very seriously injuring its appearance.Fig. 19illustrates a typical beef loading scene at a large American packing plant.

FIG. 19.—LOADING BEEF INTO REFRIGERATOR CARS.

—In order to watch the business and to know exactly what each and every purchase realizes it is necessary to keep an account of each purchase separately, and this is invariably done in up-to-date establishments. Cattle are killed in lots in which they are purchased, whether there be one or 500 in the lot; everything in a particular purchase is kept absolutely separate, the weight of the beef, hide and tallow separated, and a record sent to the office as soon as obtainable. Night clerks usually figure the cost of the beef, and when the day force comes on in the morning, the actual cost of all the live stock killed the day previous is before them for their guidance in the day’s shipments. To do this, as the cattle are dressed, the beef is weighed before placing in the cooler. Here the weight of each individual carcass is taken and tagged, showing the lot to which it belongs for guidance in shipping, the tag also having the grading of the particular carcass. Any lot of cattle will run unevenly, or in other words, there are some that are better than others. As they go to the scale an experienced man looks them over and grades them as No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3, considering only this particular lot of cattle, as a No. 2 of one lot may be much better than aNo. 1 of another lot; but they are graded by taking into consideration the whole of this particular bunch of cattle, as purchased. Any cattle that are badly bruised or damaged or discolored are thrown out and sent to some other department where they are cut up or treated to the best advantage possible. As fast as the cattle are graded and tagged they are put into the cooler, each special grade on a separate rail, irrespective of the lot to which it belongs, so that when the shipping clerk gives orders to the loading gang to have the beef taken out of the coolers, he will order so many No. 1 cattle off such a rail, lot, etc. As all cattle of that particular grade are on this rail it greatly expedites shipping.

FIG. 20.—VIEW IN BEEF COOLER OF A CHICAGO PACKING HOUSE.

A great deal depends, in the expense of loading as well as the speed at which it is possible to be done, upon having the beef put into the cooler in such a way that it comes out readily and without a great deal of handling and overhauling to get odd cattle.

—It is necessary to keep coolers sweet and clean, and it is advisable to use a liberal amount of sawdust on the floors, so that the drippings from the meats may be rapidly absorbed; the sawdust should be changed bi-weekly or frequently enough to keep the coolers in a sweet and cleanly condition. Entrance doors should be washed daily, as they accumulate grease and blood, which if allowed to remain will soon become sour and disagreeable.

In all packing house plants where a comparatively large volume of business is done there should be one man whose sole duty it is to look after the refrigerators. This is a matter which necessarily needs constant attention and care. When the cooler is filled with warm meat and the doors are shut it is his duty to increase the refrigeration and see that the meat is brought down to the required temperature in the required time. It is apparent that the refrigerators should receive careful consideration, and be in charge of a man of reliability.

Beef should be placed in the cooler immediately after it is killed and never allowed to hang outside any longer than necessary. While it may take a little more refrigeration to handle it this way than to have it partially chilled by the outside air, the general appearance of the beef will more than repay for the additional cost of refrigeration.

—Mutton and veal follow the same general rule as beef as to handling. Beef offal of every character should be handled under conditions described for export beef. In the handling of any warm product it should all be spaced so as to provide for ample circulation.

—During a summer season and where hogs may have been hung out for say two hours to air dry, the chill rooms should be reduced to a temperature of 30° F. at the time the hogs are put in and sufficient refrigeration applied in to prevent the maximum temperature exceeding 38° F. It should then be forced sufficiently to again reduce the temperature of the chill rooms to 32° F. within twelve hours after killing, maintained thus for twenty-four hours additional, then reduced to 28° F. and maintained at this temperature until hogs are cut out; forty-eight to seventy-two hours after slaughtering.

FIG. 21.—VIEW IN HOG CHILLING ROOM OF A LARGE PACKING HOUSE IN CHICAGO.

The chilling of hogs is handled in a measure the same as cattle, except that the hog is a much more difficult animal to chill owing to the character of the animal. The chilling is of such vital importance that most successful meat curers have a set schedule for operation.

It is better to segregate the day’s killing in sections of coolers sixteen to thirty-two feet wide; to insulate each cooler section from the adjacent one; to make a filling limit of 40° F. and to require sufficient refrigeration capacity and facility to reduce the chamber to 32° F. the morning after killing; and to maintain these temperatures until cutting, about forty-eight hours after killing.

—Dry salt cellars should be carried at a temperature of 38° F.; sweet pickle meat cellars at 35° F., and for almost any kind of curing. Cellars are occasionally reduced to 32° F. to suspend rapidity of cure. Dry packed meats carry safely for ninety days in 20° F., and for longer holding should be reduced to 12° F.

—The freezing of pork, which has become so important during the last decade, seems to produce the best results when performed at low temperatures. Many firms maintain freezers at a temperature of from 15° to 10° below 0° F. Some insist upon storage of meats under conditions of 0° F. to 5° F. Unquestionably the prompt freezing of the product is a benefit, but the storage in these excessively low temperatures would seem questionable since there is a very marked “drying” tendency in low temperature rooms owing to the very low percentage of moisture the air will contain.

It is the practice among some to coat the edges of piles of pork, or the individual pieces, with water after the style of dipping fish in fish-freezing. For all practical purposes, however, it would appear as well to store the meat in rooms at 7° to 13° F., with 10° as a standard. Canvas covering to prevent air circulation is a benefit.

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