The Manufacture of Tomato Products: Including whole tomato pulp or puree, tomato catsup, chili sauce, tomato soup, trimming pulpHier, W. G. (Wayland Gladstone)
Science
The Manufacture of Tomato Products: Including whole tomato pulp or puree, tomato catsup, chili sauce, tomato soup, trimming pulp
Hier, W. G. (Wayland Gladstone)
Tomato products
For tomatoes grown on clay ground the cylindrical rotary washer or
squirrel cage type made of 1–inch mesh heavy wire is very satisfactory.
When tomatoes come to the plant caked with clay, as they are after a
hard rain followed by strong sunshine, a friction washer of this type is
about the only thing that will clean them. This type of washer also does
excellent work on late tomatoes, and this applies to all localities. A
large percentage of late tomatoes become deeply cracked at the stem end,
and although these cracks, or fissures, usually appear to be healed
over, an examination will generally reveal the presence of mold in them,
and in many cases large tufts of mold like cotton completely filling
them. By merely passing such tomatoes through a water bath, even though
the water is thoroughly agitated by means of many inlets of compressed
air, this imbedded mold will be scarcely affected. A rotary, heavy wire,
reel washer, inclined at an angle of about 1 foot in 8, and rotating
slowly, with a heavy, sharp spray of water striking the rolling tomatoes
from the time they are dumped in until they roll out, will take out a
very large proportion of this mold, besides cleaning the entire surface
of the tomato thoroughly.
The washer should deliver about two bushels of tomatoes per minute to
the sorting belt. As the wire cylinder revolves, the tomatoes are
carried half way up the side and are then thrown back again, being
carried slowly and steadily toward the outlet. A 1½-inch pipe at the top
of the cylinder, and running from end to end, with small holes bored at
intervals of an inch, should direct a sharp, cutting shower of water on
the tomatoes as they revolve and rub each other. A fine, sharp spray
will accomplish more than a less forceful but larger stream of water
coming from a larger opening. The dirt, mold, etc. is washed through the
wire mesh into a drip pan, and thence to the sewer.
Some of the rotary washers used are of solid metal, and others
constructed of wooden slats have been used. Both of these should be
avoided, as the solid metal produces a sliding, instead of a rolling
action, and the wooden slats mold quickly and become slimy. Also, some
of the washers are slightly too narrow, and the tomatoes are so crowded
while they are rotating that many of them do not come in contact with
the wire, but merely roll on top of other tomatoes. Other washers are
considerably wider than necessary. If the tomatoes are to be fed to the
belt at the rate of 2 bushels per minute, a reel (squirrel cage) washer
2 to 2½ feet in diameter, and about 8 feet long, having an inclination
of about 1 foot in 8, and revolving at about 20 revolutions per minute,
will usually give satisfactory results. These are the figures
recommended by Mr. Howard of the Bureau of Chemistry, who has made a
very extensive study of the efficiency of rotary washers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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