Freezing.
—As there is an increased demand for tongues in the warm months over any other part of the year, it is advantageous to hold them frozen until the demand develops. In freezing it is necessary that they should be put in a very low temperature and frozen quickly, as if handled otherwise it has a tendency to give them an undesirable color when cured. They can be thawed, cured, and smoked as required.
Test on Freezing Beef Tongues.
—The following is a test on tongues thus handled, showing the percentage of shrinkage, freezing, curing and smoking:
TEST ON FREEZING BEEF TONGUES.
| Lbs. | Per cent. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight of twenty-five 5¹⁄₂-lb. beef tongues to freezer | 140 | ||
| In freezer one week—weight | 138 | ||
| Freezing shrinkage | 2 | = | 1.43 |
| Taken from freezer to leacher—weight | 138 | ||
| Leached twenty hours in city water—weight | 144 | ||
| After leaching, drained twelve hours—weight | 142 | ||
| Gain leaching from frozen to drained weight | 4 | = | 2.90 |
| Gain leaching from green to drained weight | 2 | = | 1.43 |
| After leaching—pickled—weight to pickle | 142 | ||
| Rubbed in salt and packed in bbls. with seventy-deg. pickle to remain for forty-five days;overhauled in forty days, and five days later dumped at forty-five days weight | 141 | ||
| Drained eight hours—weight | 139 | ||
| Shrinkage from green to cured—drained weight | 1 | = | 0.71 |
| Shrinkage from leached to cured—drained weight | 3 | = | 2.11 |
| Weight from cellar to smoke house | 139 | ||
| Smoked fifteen hours—average temperature, 116° F.—smoked weight | 117 | ||
| Shrinkage to smoked from green weight | 23 | = | 16.43 |
| Shrinkage to smoked from leached weight | 25 | = | 17.60 |
| Shrinkage to smoked from cured weight | 22 | = | 15.82 |
Surplus Beef Rounds.
—Where cattle are cut in large quantities it is almost impossible to sell the rounds fresh, there being comparatively small demand for round steak. It is necessary to use this particular part of the meat in some other product, which is done by making what is known as “beef hams.” The very light rounds, or rounds out of canning cattle, are generally used for canning purposes, they being too light to suit the trade for “beef hams.”
Stripping Beef Hams.
—In preparing “beef hams” the rounds are cut by what is known as the “packing house cut,” which leaves a piece of meat from the rump on the round, as compared to the ordinary cut. This piece is what is known as the “knuckle” piece of the set. Rounds cut this way are considered regular. When rounds, cut for market purposes, are stripped, they are known as short knuckled rounds and are not accepted as regular.