Apparatus and method for producing sausages

Description of the Prior Art:

As is well known to those skilled in the art, sausages in general, as well as salsi. Chas, known as skinless sausages, are produced «» · · · »by injecting a mass of ground meat draining into a closed tubular film wrap at one end. The meat dough is fed through a generally tubular injector into the tubular film, which is previously axially positioned around this tubular injector. To make it possible to place a long tubular film casing over a relatively short tubular injector, something like 30 meters of long tubular casing is first folded into an accordion shape along its longitudinal geometric axis, similar to an accordion bellows, the in order to get short, straight corrugated cartridges, 30 centimeters long. Each cartridge is closed at one end as it is fitted over the tubular member of the injector. After the 30 xn envelope is filled, the machine must be stopped and cleaned before feeding another cartridge over the tubular member. These steps are very time consuming. In order to produce this cartridge, a plurality of manufacturing steps are required. First, a tubular film 30 meters long must be produced. Then, this tubular film is folded in order to form a compact cartridge of 30 cm in length. This procedure is expensive and time consuming.

Another problem concerning the use of such a cartridge is that, after a certain period of air storage, some adjacent folds become joined to each other. As a consequence, during the filling -

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the tubular film is forced into the folded portions when unfolding, and thus shearing or breaking of the wrapper occurs. This implies stopping the production, placing a new cartridge on the injector, prior to the relevant cleaning. The cost also increases in this way due to the loss of damaged material.

Background of the Invention:

It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for the continuous manufacture of sausages, which does not require the use of cartridges or the prior adjustment of tubular members manufactured over the tubular meat dough injector.

In other words, a continuous manufacturing system is suggested, which additionally provides mei. for which no undesirable joining of parts of the tubular envelope can occur.

Summary of the Invention:

The present invention provides an apparatus, which enables the continuous manufacture of sausages using a roll of film similar to the flat strip made of appropriate material, which, at the same time as the meat dough is injected, is transformed into a container. tubular member or enclosure, hereinafter referred to only as the enclosure, which is formed around the tubular meat injector and transported ahead of it to a choke assembly, to form a row of sausage units. The film similar to

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• ··· · »* · ·· strip is transformed into a wrapper having a longitudinal joint, which is sealed ahead of the meat filling step.

The apparatus of the present invention provides the means necessary to convert a film similar to the strip, which is cheaper than the cartridges used in the prior art, directly into a desired length of wrapper.

Bearing in mind the large quantity of sausage units, which are consumed, it will be easily understood that great savings are achieved by not having to use the aforementioned cartridge ^¹.

essentially linear design of the machine of the present invention, in view of the use of a film similar to the strip, results in a plurality of advantages in relation to its maintenance, avoids excessive wear of the respective parts, and does not generate efforts on the wrappers, which would tend to block the machine, as in the prior art, where the folded portions of a cartridge often block the correct feeding of the shells.

Briefly, the present invention relates to a sausage production apparatus, having a flowable meat dough source, a tubular member connected to said source and having an ejector end for injecting the flowable meat dough into a profitable invention. tubular, and a choke set to strangle the mas-filled casing at short intervals. · ·

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meat, to form a string of sausages, where a roll of film similar to the strip is provided, the film having generally parallel side edges, curving device having an inlet end and an outlet end, surrounding said tubular member in an intermediate portion thereof, said inlet end being connected to said roll of film similar to the strip, the bending device continuously transforming the strip-like film into a tubular shape having overlapping side edges, welding device adjacent to said outlet end of the bending device and facing the tubular member in the zone corresponding to said edges of the overlapping sides for weld them, torsion blogger device and linearly welded tubular enclosure carrier, circling the end and jetora to transport said tubular casing in a forward direction, in the direction of the trangulation assembly and still not allowing any torsional force exerted on the tubular casing in the choke assembly to progress in the direction of the curving device, drive device to rotate the tubular member, bending device, synchronously in the same number of revolutions welding device and transport device around the longitudinal geometric axis of said tubular member, in order to also rotate in the same number of revolutions of the casing being formed, the strangulation set. . · “· &lt;1 b« · · · · “· * ·. . . . · L ·. . &lt;·· «« ». · «(« C • »· br ··· * 4 · * • · · · - · · · * · _„ *. ··· ·. * 4 ·. * * · ·· ··· being coaxial with said tubular member and located beyond said ejection end and having a locking jaw device moving successively along said longitudinal geometric axis in a stapling position, and adapted to retain the stapled portion of a wrapper filled with meat dough against additional rotation, so as to obtain successive spaced twisted intervals between which spaced salsis are formed, defining said sausage row.

For a better understanding of the present invention, reference will now be made by way of example to the accompanying drawings, in which a preferred embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention is illustrated, in order to facilitate the understanding of the principles of the invention.

Brief Description of Drawings:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of the apparatus of the present invention;

figure 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line ΙΪ-ΙΙ of figure 1, and figure 3 is a perspective view of part of the apparatus.

Description of the preferred embodiment: __

Referring now to figure 1 of the drawings, the sausage production apparatus 1 includes a long tubular member 2 having a front or ejector end 3 and a rear end 4. The rear end 4 is connected to a source 5 of flowable meat,

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···· ··· • · • · · · • · which comprises an injection pump 6 having a stationary portion 7 and a rotating portion 8, which, in turn, is connected to the tubular member and thus member 2 and portion 8 are adapted to rotate together about a single longitudinal geometric axis 24. Stationary potion 7 is connected to a conduit 9, which feeds a flowable meat mass of any suitable type.

Adjacent to the rear end 4, a roll 10 of thermo-sealable film similar to strip 11 having parallel longitudinal side edges 12-1 ', is mounted on a rotating reel 10a surrounding the tubular member 2. The film similar to strip 11 has a thickness about 18 yu. The reel 10a is in turn supported by a column 25a.

The roller 10 is associated with a guide device 14 including a guide plate 15. As best shown in figure 3, plate 15 has a plurality of elongated slits 16a, 16b, 16c and 16d, which change the direction of working of the film 11, in order to guide the same in the direction of the bending device 17. The bending device 17 has a support and direction plate projecting in the upward direction 18, connected to the guide device 14. 0 tubular member 2 protrudes through said plate 18. A short spiral sectional sleeve 19 protrudes from said plate 18, circling an intermediate portion of tubular member 2, in the direction of the longitudinal geometric axis 24, and extending if · «· towards the front end 3. The glove 19 is coaxially arranged with respect to the tubular member 2 and the latter extends concentrically within the glove 19.

Sleeve 19 defines an inlet end 19a and an outlet end 19b. The spiral sleeve 19 defines overlapping spaced edge portions 20 and 21, forming a channel parallel to the longitudinal geometric axis 24.

A second column 25b having a rotating support ring 23 concentrically surrounding the tubular member 2, is provided with a projecting bar 33 parallel to the geometric axis 24 and connected to the sleeve 19 through a support plane 34. The bar 33 supports postponement the welding device 13 between said outlet end 19b and the support ring 23, and is coaxial with said channel formed by the edge portions 20, 21. The film 11 is unwound from the roll 10 guided through the slits 16a, 16b, 16c and 16d, to locate it behind the direction plate and support 18, then to move the inlet end 19a towards the outlet end 19b, to transform the sink strip into a tubular shape with the side edges 12, 12¹overlapping relationship. The purpose of the welding device 13 is to seal the overlapping side edges 12, 12 'to form a housing 11a, and for which the welding device 13 is conveniently a sliding heater, which operates in combination with the periphery of the tubular member 2 in order to pressure seal the said lateral edges 12, 12 'together.

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Ring 23 supports at least one pair of diametrically opposed rollers 22, facing the periphery of the tubular member 2 near said front end 3.

The assembly consisting of the swivel portion 8, roller 10, guide device 14, tubular member 2, bending device 17, welding device 13 and support ring 23 with its corresponding rollers 22, is thus rotatably supported by the pair of columns 25a and 25b.

To facilitate the description of the operation, this set will hereinafter be called the rotating assembly X, being schematically surrounded by a dashed line in figure 1. The rotating assembly X is rotated by a conventional motor 32, schematically shown in figure 1.

Downstream of set X, a choke set 31 is provided. This choke set 31 consists of two identical parts, which are symmetrically arranged on each side of the geometry axis 24. Each of these parts, in turn, consists of two pulleys spaced 29, at least one of which is a drive pulley adapted to drive an endless belt 28. Spaced claws 27 defining a stapling jaw device protrude out of each belt 28. Due to the synchronized movement of the belts 28, the pair of claws 27 sequentially turn to each other, acting as stapling jaws, * “N ft.

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• *&gt; ·. »« · · *. · ··· which move along the geometric axis 24, as will be explained later. The arrows M show the direction of movement of the belts 28.

Thus, it can be understood that the rotary assembly X provides a rotary motion to the cro 11a casing, as indicated by the arrow R, while the throttle assembly 31 provides the casing already filled with meat 11b (already filled with the drained meat mass. 30), as will be explained below, with a longitudinal movement, as indicated by the arrow L.

With respect to the operation of the apparatus 1, the strip 11 is unwound from the roll 10 and passed through slits, more particularly through the slits 16a, 16b to ensure a good unwinding, and then through the slot 16c where the strip is rotated 90 ° with respect to the direction of travel, which the strip had during the passage through the slits 16a and 16b. Upon leaving from slot 16c, strip 11 is moved through slot 16d and curved to follow a path forming an angle of 90 ° with respect to the previous path, and along a plane also forming an angle of 90 ° with respect to the plane defined by the main portion of the guide plate 15. In this way, the film strip 11 moves along the support plate 18 into the glove 1% to become a tubular film there, as previously explained. The tubular film begins to surround the tubular member 2 as it leaves the outlet end 19b, where it still has the late edges

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• ·· overlapping spaced 12 and 12 '. It is thus passed through the heater 13, where these edges 12, 12 'are joined by heat. In this way, the tubular film is now converted into a tubular wrap 11a.

As this wrapper moves forward, it passes through the rollers 22. Up to this point, it should be remembered that the entire rotating assembly X with the film in the process of forming rotates around the geometric axis 24.

Now assuming for a moment that the beginning of the film when it passes through the ejector end 3 is closed, it goes without saying that when the injection of the meat mass into the wrapper is initiated, the expulsion of the meat mass 30 inside the casing 11b produces forward movement of the film 11 and the resulting casing 11b. As the meat-filled and closed end of the wrapper continues its forward movement, while rotating around the geometric axis 24, it has sufficient self-supporting stiffness to penetrate within the space defined between both. straps 28 of the choke set 31, which starts its movement at this moment, so that a pair of confronting claws 27 will begin to penetrate the sausage and form a new sausage from the string of sausages to be formed, as will now be explained with respect to the continuous manufacturing process.

As can be seen in figure 1, the distance between each pair of pulleys 29 around the • · • · ··· ·· ·· ·· • · · · ·

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which the respective belts 28 run, is such that two pairs of adjacent claws 27 of the two belts 28 can be simultaneously in a stapling relationship, thus forming a sausage 26 between them. It will be further understood that, as the belts 28 move in the M direction, the claws 27 will sequentially engage the filled casing portion adjacent the ejection end 3 and progressively strangle the encapsulated meat dough body, until both claws of a confronting pair face each other, so that the draining meat mass is moved in opposite directions into the respective remaining wrapping portions, to define the end of two adjacent sausages. The salsi. cha which is located between two pairs of stapled jaws 27 will be moved forward along the geometry axis 24 without rotation, while the sausage portion being formed adjacent the ejector end 3 has a housing portion, which simultaneously rotates in around the geometry axis 24, so that in this way a portion 35 similar to no or twisted and strangled gap is automatically formed. This is the reason why the rotating assembly X must rotate.

However, care must be taken in the fact that this twisting effect produced in the number 35 portion must not be transferred over the forming shell or, in other words, back in the direction of the bending device 17, that is, in addition to rollers 22, por- 13 • · that this would change the position of the overlapping side edges 12, 12¹ with respect to heater 13, which would result in the fact that welding would not be done. In this way, rollers 22 act as torsion lock rollers.

The arrangement described above is thus able to provide continuous manufacture of a string of sausages, the length of which depends on the co-length of the film roll 10.

With regard to the starting system, as previously described with respect to the fact that, at the beginning of the operation the tubular casing must be closed, the alternative procedure would be to subject an empty casing to pass through a pair of moving claws. and then start with the ejection of the meat at the ejector end 3.

Thus, in the operation of the apparatus according to the invention, a roll 10 of heat-sealable film 11 is fed around a tubular member 2 adapted to feed a flowable meat mass 30. The film 11 is wound around the tubular member 2 in order to have the respective side edges 12, 12 'of the film in overlapping relationship, while the film and the tubular member 2 are simultaneously rotated. After that, the spaced lateral edges of the film are joined by heat and the casing thus formed as a tubular casing is moved axially along the tubular member 2, to pass through the ejection end of the mass of

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&gt; 9

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V ne 3, where a flowable meat mass is fed into the tubular film wrap 11b. During filling with the meat dough, the tubular film is also continuously rotated. After that, the rotation of the filled tubular casing is stopped, while it is moving forward, to form in successive locations spaced twisted intervals, in order to produce a row of sausages.

Although the essential characteristics of the present invention have been described by means of a preferred embodiment, the invention is not limited to this embodiment and extends to any alternative forms, as long as within the inventive concept defined in the appended claims.

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