As stated in the previous chapter, the temperature of the pulp when it is filled should be at least 170 degrees F. and preferably above 180 degrees. The cans should be filled clear to the top with the pipe or hose which conducts the hot pulp from the finisher; they should not be topped off out of a dipper which contains luke warm pulp and is used for topping purposes. It is not necessary to do this topping and the practice should not be permitted. The sponges which are used for wiping the edges of the cap hole should be kept in a bucket of clean, hot water, and put back in the bucket after being used on a truckload of cans. The capping and tipping job should undergo inspection before the cans are trucked away.
Handling Filled Cans
Cans of filled pulp should be handled carefully. The cans should be set down easily, so as to strain the seams as little as possible. Of course the laborer wants to let go of cans of red-hot pulp just as quickly as possible, but it is not necessary to drop them several inches, and the employees should be taught to set the can on edge and then let its weight straighten it up. If the employee is given good thick gloves it is just as easy to handle the cans carefully. I had occasion at one time to check up on the percentage of swells resulting from one pile of pulp which was stacked by an old hand who knew how to handle pulp easily and carefully, and another pile from the same day’s run which was stacked by a gang of new and uninstructed help who simply picked the cans off the truck and dropped them in place. These were second-hand cans, and the difference was considerable.
Both filled cans and empty cans should be handled almost like eggs. One large pulp packing concern is particularly cautious about this, and it is certainly soothing to the nerves to see their employees handling 5–gal. cans after witnessing the rough and tumble methods in the average plant. They know that it pays to be particular, and that they can get three years’ use out of almost all of their 135–lb. plate cans, and not have many swells either. This concern rarely sells any of their pulp, but puts it up for their own use, to be made into bean sauce, catsup, soup, etc., during the winter months.
Advantages of Separating Batches
Some packers stack their pulp away without dating it; others date each day’s run; while others stack each batch separately. The latter system is practicable where the pulp is cooked in large batches of about 300 gallons or more and in working up the pulp during the winter months it is a great help. For instance, suppose part of the pulp is to be used for catsup and part for bean sauce. The packer can take batches one to fifty, for example, open one can from each batch, examine it for color and microscopical analysis and he knows exactly what he has in that stack of pulp, which may be three thousand cans. He can select the various batches to be used for the purpose to which they are best adapted, and he can be absolutely sure that each can in a batch is exactly the same in every respect.
Take another example: We will say that the packer is selling his pulp. His records show that on September 20th and on October 2nd, for instance, he had a lot of bad tomatoes; shipments received on those days were unavoidably held up and he had to make the best of the situation. He knows, however, that on those same dates he had a lot of good tomatoes which came in by wagon haul and that they were run up at the same time. He has a large order for pulp from a catsup maker who is very particular about the microscopical analysis of the goods he buys. In order to play absolutely safe, the packer can take a sample from each batch of the pulp run on September 20th and October 2nd, and if a half dozen batches run too high he can omit them when he makes the shipment to this buyer. If he preserved a sample from each batch run on these dates at the time they were run, which is the better way, it makes the sorting out of this pulp a very easy matter. He thus eliminates the danger of the loss of a good buyer by sending him even a comparatively small quantity of pulp which is high in micro-organisms.
It may seem to one who has never tried it that stacking each batch of pulp separately would involve an awful lot of extra labor, and loss of valuable space when stacking. As a matter of fact, it involves no extra labor at all and no extra space. I have had a season’s pack of pulp amounting to 75,000 5–gal. cans at one plant and cooked in batches of 300 gallons each, stacked each batch separate and it was no trouble at all. The inspector who examined the tipping and capping job, or the tipper, if the inspecting was done by him, merely took a fine stiff brush and a marking pot and marked the batch number on the cap of each can. This only takes a half minute for a truck load. The date was not marked on the can, as a record of the batch numbers run on each date during the season was kept at the office. When the pulp was piled away each batch was stacked together, and where one batch left off and another one began a slip of wood was inserted between two of the cans.
On days when the tomatoes are running bad, or there is a scarcity of help for the sorting belt, it is wise to preserve a sample from each batch and have an analysis made of it for reference when the pulp is shipped out. On days when a good grade of tomatoes are being run it is hardly necessary to analyze every batch, but a sample of about every third batch can be taken.
Stacking each day’s run separate is, of course, better than no separation at all. However, there are not many days when the entire run will have a similar analysis; the best becomes inseparably mixed up with the worst, and when the pulp is worked up the packer is working in the dark. To stack a season’s run away without any system of separating various divisions of it is the worst kind of folly, and is almost sure to lead to trouble.