Freezing Beef.
—Beef prepared for freezing should be handled as if for chilling or export and at the end of thirty-six hours the coolers should be reduced to as low temperature as consistent, until the beef is transferred to freezing chambers. If a plant is constructed for freezing beef it is preferable to set aside and prepare spaces for freezing independent of the chill rooms. The freezing temperature should be maintained at zero or below, and if the meat is to be kept for a long time it should be stored in 12° to 15° above zero temperature.
Loading Beef.
—The cars must be properly iced prior to loading and the temperature in the cars brought down to the right point. It is generally customary to ice the cars one day before loading, as a car should never be loaded that is not 38° F. or lower when the doors are opened. In the loading, if it is a warm day, the temperature will creep up much higher, but the beef coming out of a temperature of 34° or 35° F. carries a great deal of cold with it, so to speak, and even though the cars may be 50° to 60° F. the cold beef, combined with the refrigeration from the ice compartments of the car, will bring the temperature down rapidly. Cars, of course, should be thoroughly cleaned and aired out prior to the icing, so that when they are open they are perfectly clean as well as of the proper temperature. Beef should be put into the cars as fast as it comes from the coolers, not being allowed to hang on the rails and be exposed before being placed in the refrigerator car. Great care should be used in hanging the beef, that it is hung perfectly solid and wedged tightly otherwise with the motion of the car the beef will become chafed and a bone from one quarter of meat will mangle and tear the meat on the quarter hanging next to it, often very seriously injuring its appearance. [Fig. 19] illustrates a typical beef loading scene at a large American packing plant.
FIG. 19.—LOADING BEEF INTO REFRIGERATOR CARS.
Weighing and Tagging.
—In order to watch the business and to know exactly what each and every purchase realizes it is necessary to keep an account of each purchase separately, and this is invariably done in up-to-date establishments. Cattle are killed in lots in which they are purchased, whether there be one or 500 in the lot; everything in a particular purchase is kept absolutely separate, the weight of the beef, hide and tallow separated, and a record sent to the office as soon as obtainable. Night clerks usually figure the cost of the beef, and when the day force comes on in the morning, the actual cost of all the live stock killed the day previous is before them for their guidance in the day’s shipments. To do this, as the cattle are dressed, the beef is weighed before placing in the cooler. Here the weight of each individual carcass is taken and tagged, showing the lot to which it belongs for guidance in shipping, the tag also having the grading of the particular carcass. Any lot of cattle will run unevenly, or in other words, there are some that are better than others. As they go to the scale an experienced man looks them over and grades them as No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3, considering only this particular lot of cattle, as a No. 2 of one lot may be much better than a No. 1 of another lot; but they are graded by taking into consideration the whole of this particular bunch of cattle, as purchased. Any cattle that are badly bruised or damaged or discolored are thrown out and sent to some other department where they are cut up or treated to the best advantage possible. As fast as the cattle are graded and tagged they are put into the cooler, each special grade on a separate rail, irrespective of the lot to which it belongs, so that when the shipping clerk gives orders to the loading gang to have the beef taken out of the coolers, he will order so many No. 1 cattle off such a rail, lot, etc. As all cattle of that particular grade are on this rail it greatly expedites shipping.
FIG. 20.—VIEW IN BEEF COOLER OF A CHICAGO PACKING HOUSE.