Method and means for rapid loading of casing-bearing sleeves on a sausage making machine

• Main Authors: Hergott, Steven P, Hamblin, David S, Hardy, Michael J
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 09.12.2003

Stuffing sausages with emulsion normally involves pumping emulsion through a hollow stuffing tube towards a discharge end of the tube. A hollow tubular casing material is slidably mounted on the outside of the tube with an otherwise open end extending just beyond the discharge end of the tube. The open end of the casing is then closed in any convenient manner. The emulsion extruded out of the stuffing tube enters the casing which becomes filled, with the pressure on the pumped emulsion slidably moving the casing off of the sleeve. The filled casing is then formed into links through conventional means. This process works well with artificial casings which can be shirred or telescopically compressed so that a casing thirty feet or so in length can be compressed into a shirred condition of slightly more than a foot in length, thus allowing many sausages to be made before a new shirred casing is placed on the tube. A method for rapid loading of casing-bearing sleeves on the stuffing tube of a sausage machine, provides for placing the preloaded sleeves on a feeder mechanism and selectively and sequentially moving the sleeves into registering position with the discharge end of an emulsion stuffing tube; sequentially moving the stuffing tube into each of the sleeves and extruding emulsion through the stuffing tube into the casing mounted on the sleeve until the sleeve is slidably removed from the tube caused in part by the movement of emulsion entering the casing. The apparatus has a fixture suitably movably mounted on the machine with a plurality of preloaded sleeves thereon for sequential movement for selective alignment of the sleeves with the stuffing tube for sequential filling of the casings with emulsion.