Abstract: A chuck for a meat encasing machine has an elongated body having an inlet end and a discharge end. The body has an elongated hollow bore extending therethrough and an exterior cylindrical surface. A plurality of radially extending flutes are in the bore of the body for purposes of grasping and imparting rotational motion to a filled meat casing. An annular groove extends around the exterior cylindrical surface of the body member. A resilient O-ring is mounted in the groove and slightly projects outwardly from the groove to frictionally engage a socket into which the chuck is inserted.

Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus for manufacturing sausages or the like including a nozzle for stuffing a material such as a meat emulsion into a casing for sausages or the like, a pump for supplying the material into the nozzle, and a casing engaging member having a portion for engaging with the casing and adapted to rotate while braking the casing. The apparatus includes a device for driving the casing-engaging member, the device including a housing, a rotary member accommodated rotatably inside the housing and adapted to rotate the casing-engaging member with the casing-engaging member fixed therein, a bearing for rotatably supporting the rotary member, a sealing device for preventing the entrance of a foreign substance such as the material into the bearing, and a rotation transmitting device for driving the rotary member, the bearing having a sealing member for sealing a lubricant for the bearing in the bearing.

Abstract: An improved mechanism controls gathering plates for an apparatus for the creation of filled tubing products. The plate comprise a longitudinally stationary pair of plates and a longitudinally movable pair of plates. The apparatus includes a cylinder, a piston and an adjustable stop. The cylinder is attached to the movable gaathering plates. The fixed piston rod extends within the cylinder and has a piston within the cylinder. The stop is for stopping movement of the cylinder relative to the piston under the action of fluid moved into the cylinder. The stop is mounted on the cylinder and is adjustable to provide for adjustment of the stopping position of the cylinder relative to the piston.

Abstract: The device comprises means suitable for operating in rotation a lower annular portion of a hopper provided with a delivery unit suitable for allowing the progressive delivery of meat in a rotary pump for packing ground meat. The transmission means comprise a ring constituting the lower annular portion of the hopper and made in a single piece with a gear, arranged round a fixed bush, suitable for receiving the rotary motion from a pinion located at the upper extremity of the pump's driving shaft.

Abstract: In a method for making sausages, in which the sausage meat exiting from a filling machine is filled into a sausage skin pulled off a skin caterpillar to form a sausage rope and the rope is then divided into individual sausages by twisting it between every two adjacent sausage portions, the improvement wherein the spacing in the skin between each two adjacent sausage portions in the rope is increased by pulling the leading sausage portion forwards together with the sausage skin at a speed greater than the sausage meat expulsion speed during the dividing operation.

Abstract: In a method and apparatus for making sausages in the form of a continuous string with subsequent separation thereof into individual sausages or into groups of interconnected sausages, means are provided for varying the separating operating in a simple manner according to the length of the sausage and the number of interconnected sausages in groups thereof desired, while still ensuring an accurated separating perfomance. In the spearating operation separator elements are mounted opposite one another on either side of the string that revolve synchronously in the conveying direction along respective opposite circular paths, their revolving speed being variable over the non-operative sector of their revolutions relative to the operative sector where their speed is compatible with the sausage conveying speed.

Abstract: An apparatus and a method for forming casingless food products such as casingless sausages and the like is provided. The apparatus includes a denaturing solution into which a flowable batter material is extruded in a generally cylindrical configuration. The denaturing solution includes ingredients which act on the batter to form a skin. In a first embodiment, the extrusion apparatus extrudes batter directly into the denaturing solution and the extrusion orifice is adjustable reclosable to form domed ends of the batter material during the extrusion of the material into the solution. In a second embodiment, a shaping and cutting apparatus is provided to receive a continuous ribbon of batter from the extrusion apparatus. The cutting and shaping device cuts the ribbon into links and simultaneously forms domed ends thereon. The formed links are removed from the solution and, after an optional washing step, can be further processed into a cooked and packaged product.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for producing sausages of equal length by dividing a sausage string produced by a filling machine and discharged from a dividing means, which include sensing the central, cylindrical part of the sausage is with a measuring roll and producing length pulses in the course of this process simultaneously producing volume pulses corresponding to the meat volume transported during this period of length measurement and comparing length pulses with the volume pulses, whereupon the total number of volume pulses required for producing the desired length of the sausage is calculated in a control means and the discharge of the sausage meat is stopped when said total number of volume pulses has been reached, the dividing process than being initiated.

Abstract: A method is provided for closing an end of a tubular food casing in such a way that the end so closed is made suitable for use as a hanger for the casing. In one embodiment, an end of a food casing is formed into a rigid loop suitable for hanging the casing. In a second embodiment, a die cut hole is made in a uniquely formed end of a casing, enabling the casing to be suspended by a hook inserted through the hole.

Abstract: An accessory device for a sausage stuffer serving for the production of skinless sausages, or the like, comprises pipes which are connected to a filling pipe of the sausage stuffer and which are subdivided into different sections maintained at different temperatures so that skinless sausages can be produced.

Abstract: In a stuffing machine for stuffing comminuted material in casing to form chubs, the machine comprising a stuffing horn for the passage of comminuted material and for the provision of casing, a casing brake for controlling casing withdrawal from the horn in relation to the exiting of comminuted material from the horn means, a clip applying apparatus for applying upstream and downstream clips to the casing and a looper assembly for applying loops to the upstream clip. The machine also includes a product support comprising a helical spring mounted adjacent the discharge end of the casing brake defining and extending along the path of the stuffed casing, the spring having a diameter sized to permit the spring to surround the stuffed casing exiting the casing brake and having a lateral strength to support the stuffed casing.

Abstract: A combustion chamber for eliminating used steam and condensate from a frankfurter peeler is provided having a jacket utilizing a source of vacuum for receiving exhaust steam and condensate from an extension of a perforate frankfurter conditioning chamber and for discharging said exhaust steam and moisture having been used for conditioning a frankfurter for removal of its cellulosic casing prior to packaging.

Abstract: The shirred casing disclosed is packaged in a plastic tube with the lead end of that tube formed into a combined brake/size means which applies oblique frictional force and variable size control to the food emulsion as it is being extruded into the case; also disclosed are means for permitting gas pressure build-up to be relieved and the gas to escape.

Abstract: An apparatus for providing a food product with a thread-like suspension means comprises a needle for passing the thread loop-like through the food product. Further two gripper means, a cutting means and a connecting device for the thread are provided. Preferably the connecting device comprises an ultrasonic welding head for welding together the ends of a thread section disengaged by the cutting means. The apparatus further comprises curved discs for driving at least some of the operational means.

Abstract: Apparatus for simultaneously placing a collogen film from a flat sheet of collogen film about the outside circumference of a product and placing netting about the outside circumference of the product. In one aspect, the apparatus comprises a base, a manifold assembly, a center product discharge tube, a collogen forming collar, a discharge horn and a netting support cylinder. Additionally, the apparatus may comprise a netting derucker, a discharge conveyor a product end clipper and other components and elements. The manifold assembly is mounted to the base, and the center product discharge tube extends from the manifold assembly. The collogen forming collar forms the flat sheet into a cylindrical shape, is concentric with the discharge tube and is mounted in association with the discharge tube. The discharge horn extends along a portion of the discharge tube away from the manifold assembly and is mounted in association with the discharge tube.

Abstract: An improved packaging device designed for the filling of flexible, tubular casing and for the sealing of the casing in discrete lengths which may then be further processed or packaged. The device includes a mounting assembly having a floor mounted frame with a rotatable platform supported by the frame. Adjacent the frame and platform is a device for feeding product through a product horn into casing which is shirred on the horn. The platform includes a plurality of specially designed clippers arranged in a circular array. As filled casing is discharged from the feeding mechanism it is directed tangentially into the circular array of rotating clippers which are equally spaced from each other. The clippers sequentially operate to gather the casing, apply spaced, double clips to the casing, sever the connection between adjacent clips, and to then discharge the packaged link from the device.

Abstract: An apparatus for encasing a product in a curved casing and the like and which includes an encasing machine having a stuffing tube including a discharge end which has a plurality of apertures, and wherein a product to be encased in pumped through the stuffing tube and exits the discharge end and moves generally normally relative to the longitudinal axis of the stuffing tube, and a selectively rotatable chuck assembly is borne by the encasing machine and includes a first end having a unitary wall which is substantially circular in shape, and a second end which is discontinuous, and wherein a curved collagen casing to be filled, upon exiting the chuck assembly, moves generally radially outwardly relative to the longitudinal axis of the chuck whereby the collagen casing is maintained in a proper attitude such that the casing is filled with the product to be encased, and wherein the stuffing tube is adapted to fold the product being encased against the wall of the collagen casing being filled such that the deleter

Abstract: A method of attaching a hanger member to a casing is provided, including the steps of inserting a portion of the hanger into an open end of the casing and then closing the open end of the casing to occlude and retain the hanger portion within the casing.