The following interesting description of the manufacture of “Liebig’s Extract of Meat” is taken from the Buenos Ayres ‘Standard’ of September, 1867. The establishment, of which it is a description, is at Fray Bentos, on the Uruguay, South America. “The new factory is a building which covers about 20,000 square feet, and is roofed in iron and glass. We first enter a large flagged hall, kept dark, cool, and extremely clean, where the meat is weighed, and passed through apertures to the meat-cutting machines. We next come to the beef-cutting hall, where are four powerful meat-cutters, especially designed by the company’s general manager, M. Geibert; each machine can cut the meat of 200 bullocks per hour. The meat being cut is passed to ‘digerators’ made of wrought iron; each one holds about 12,000 lbs. of beef; there are nine of these digerators, and three more have to be put up. Here the meat is digerated by high-pressure steam of 75 lbs. per square inch; from this the liquid which contains the extract and the fat of the meat proceeds in tubes to a range of ‘fat separators’ of peculiar construction. Here the fat is separated in the hot state from the extract, as no time can be lost for cool operation, otherwise decomposition would set in in a very short time.
“We proceed downstairs to an immense hall, sixty feet high, where the fat separators are working; below them is a range of five cast-iron clarifiers, 1000 gallons each, worked by high-pressure steam through Hallet’s tube system.
“Each clarifier is provided with a very ingenious steam-tap. In the monstrous clarifiers the albumen, fibrin, and phosphates are separated. From hence the liquid extract is raised by means of air-pumps, driven by two thirty horse-power engines, up to two vessels about twenty feet above the clarifiers; thence the liquid runs to the other large evaporators. Now we ascend the staircase reaching the hall, where two immense sets of four vacuum apparatus are at work, evaporating the extract by a very low temperature; here the liquid passes several filtering processes before being evaporated in vacuo. We now ascend some steps and enter the ready-making hall, separated by a wire gauze wall, and all the windows, doors, &c., guarded by the same to exclude flies and dust. The ventilation is maintained by patent fans, and the place is extremely clean. Here are placed five ready-making pans constructed of steel plates, with a system of steel discs revolving in the liquid extract.
“These five pans, by medium of discs, 100 in each pan, effect in one minute more than two million square feet evaporating surface.
“Here concludes the manufacturing process. The extract is now withdrawn in large cans and deposited for the following day.
“Ascending a few steps we enter the decrystallising and packing hall, where two large cast-iron tanks are placed, provided with hot water baths under their bottoms; in these tanks the extract is thrown in quantities of 10,000 lbs. at once, and here decrystallising is made a homogeneous mass and of uniform quality. Now samples are taken and analysed by the chemist of the establishment, Dr Seekamp, under whose charge the chemical and technical operations are performed.
“It may be mentioned that the company’s butcher killed at the rate of 80 oxen per hour; separating by a small double-edged knife the vertebræ, the animal drops down instantaneously on a waggon, and is conducted to a place where 150 men are occupied dressing the meat for the factory, cutting each ox into six pieces; 400 are being worked per day.”
Mr Tooth at a meeting before the “Food Committee” held at the Society of Arts in January, 1868, said that he did not claim any difference in the composition of his article (which was made in Australia) as compared with that made by the South American Company.
In the annexed table the composition of some of the extracts of meat of commerce is given:
—