Abattoir Humidification & Humidifiers
Typically, during the chill down process when freshly slaughtered cattle are cooled from a nominal 37°C to 12°C in a period of 12 hours, the cattle lose by weight up to 3% due to moisture loss. The loss of moisture occurs primarily during the early stages of the cooling process when the supply air from the chiller plants is at its lowest and the carcases are at their highest temperature.
The loss from a typical side of beef is 6kg; this factored by the number of sides in the store can have a major cost implication to the abattoir.
The principle of abattoir humidification to reduce the weight loss is adopted as it is not permitted to spray water directly onto the sides of beef. By humidifying, it is possible to raise the humidity in the chill down room so that, as the chilled air is warmed by the carcasses, it absorbs moisture from the air rather than drawing it from the meat, thus preventing the weight loss.
The Misting Company’s high pressure system is ideal for abattoir and meat processing applications. Rows of precision engineered spray nozzles are positioned according to the client’s layout, and spray with the airflow from the evaporators. This ensures that there is good mixing of the moisture with the air and that there is no moisture entrainment with consequential wetting out on the carcasses.
The nozzles are controlled via a control panel with the output being modulated in relation to the off coil air temperature from the evaporators so that as the carcass temperature falls the requirement for cooling decreases so the output from the sprays is reduced.
As an example of its effectiveness, by using The Misting Company high pressure humidification system in one cattle abattoir, the losses from the stores fell from 3% to around 0.5%. This cost saving when compared to the cost of the humidifier's supply and installation gave a payback on the investment in a very short period.
Benefits
For cost calculation purposes assuming a cold room holds 200 head of cattle or 400 sides of beef; this with an average weight loss of 3% amounts to a loss of 1200 kg per chill down cycle of 12 hours. For calculation purposes if you calculate reducing the weight loss by only 50 % the loss will be reduced to only 600 Kg this weight loss can be costed, as the average cost by weight of the slaughtered cattle is R35.00 per kg. This gave a financial loss of R21 000.00 per day per store. The investment of The Misting Company High Pressure System would be recouped back in less than a week!
Contact us to find out more about Abattoir Humidification.
