Progressive authorities recognize the necessity of freezer storage in meat plants. In combination pork and beef or pork plants, newer installations will be made with far less curing space for sweet pickled meats and far greater space for storing meats frozen either before or after curing to the end of producing palatable meats, not salt soaked and of inferior quality. There are slaughtering plants for export where beef is shipped chilled or frozen, and mutton frozen. Some have exclusive freezer buildings, others parts set aside for freezers.
One temperature brine is circulated, the temperature in the rooms being governed by the quantity of pipe in service. In all instances, sharp freezers, storage rooms and curing rooms are equipped with pipes therein—and the chilling rooms for beef and pork closed coils or spray, optional.
Shell and tube coolers have proven so fitting that no hesitancy need be made about using them, and the possibility of freezing is negligible with reasonable prudence. Tanks with submerged coils can be used, but it prevents the saving made by using balanced brine pumping, on high buildings, a quite material one.
CHAPTER VI
POWER PLANT REQUIREMENT.
Steam Making Equipment — Uses of Pumps — Types of Pumps — Pumps for Brine — Water Supply — Pumps for Wells — Water Distribution Systems — Pumps for Boiler Feeding — Heating Boiler Feed Water — Wells — Cooling Towers — Economizers — Superheaters — Steam Engines — Exhaust Steam — Advice as to Exhaust Steam — Boilers — Conclusion.
Steam Making Equipment.
—The quantity and type of boilers needed for a plant is entirely dependent upon the quantity of steam required and its economical or uneconomical use. The refrigerating and electric producing apparatus in the average packing house are usually looked upon as the chief using elements, but they each frequently require less steam than is used for pumping purposes, and less than is used for cooking and kindred operations. It would be well to discuss the uses of steam and return to the boilers.
Uses of Pumps.
—Pumps are used for water circulating, brine circulating, boiler feeding and pumping products. These are named in the order of their steam consuming demand as it usually occurs. They consume from 40 to 120 pounds of steam per horse power hour based on the kind of pump used and the skill in its operation. The most economical are electrically operated centrifugal pumps provided the current is economically generated, steam turbine centrifugal pumps, next if in good condition, and reciprocating simplex or duplex pumps third and fourth.