BEEF CHILLERS

They say that, if you knew how beef was processed, you might become a vegetarian. However, beef remains a staple food in U.S. society, and chillers are essential for keeping meat safe for human consumption. In this post, we examine an important publication from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: “Safe and Suitable Ingredients Used in the Production of Meat, Poultry, and Egg Products.” This helps both meat processors and consumers to consider why refrigeration might be needed and what kinds of materials are acceptable for use in the manufacturing plant. It’s important to keep in mind here that this is not an exhaustive list and that consumers who really want to insure that they are eating safe foods could ask to inspect the plants where their products are made. How Do Beef Processors Make Meat Safe While Keeping the Components Chilled? There are many chemicals that fall under the classification of antimicrobials approved for use in meat processing. For example, there are a variety of mixtures, such as an aqueous mixture of peroxyacetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid, 1-hydroxyethylidene-1, 1-diphosphoric acid, and sulfuric acid which is used to process water or ice for washing, rinsing, storing, or cooling whole or cut meat, including carcasses, parts, trim, and organs. It’s possible that consumers will read all of the chemicals used to process the parts of a cow, and we might be surprised. However, we hope that the chemicals are applied in amounts that do not harm us when we consume beef. What to Do When You Introduce a New Technology If you will process beef, remember not all chillers available for rent are built to the same standards to keep meat carcasses, parts, trim, and organs cooled to the right temperature. The chillers that we maintain in the J.C. Younger Company use only chemicals and technologies approved by government inspectors  and are built to keep beef parts cool. Any time a beef processor will introduce a new technology, then they must seek approval from the FSIS. “FSIS defines ingredients as any substances added to food, the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of food. These include substances intended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing, processing, preparing, treating, packaging, transporting, or holding food, including any source of radiation intended for any such use.” It is the responsibility of the meat processor to provide scientific evidence for how the new technology will impact consumers. A new technology that is submitted for review must include a description of its intended use, the method of use, appropriate safety measures, how it complies with current regulations, and how it will not interfere with FSIS inspection procedures. What to Look for in a Beef Processing Chiller If your plant will process meat using a rented beef processing chiller from the J.C. Younger Company, here are some things to look for: 1. Efficient energy use: A chiller is used 24-7 to keep beef parts cool. When a solid or liquid meat component must be cooled, the mechanism within the chiller equipment should be energy efficient. Otherwise, chiller costs run your electric bill to a higher level than is desired for your company’s bottom line. 2. Use of environmentally safe EPA-approved refrigerants: In our rentable chillers, we use newer technologies to ensure that our chillers are safe for the environment. Even when chillers use older coolants, they must be handled, stored, and disposed of in ways that are carefully delineated by the EPA. 3. Continuous power source and backup power source: You want to rent a beef processing chiller that will be easy to provide with continuous electricity. You should plan to supplement electrical power with a generator or another backup power source. Otherwise, during an electrical storm or a downed power line, the chiller could fail, resulting in potential spoilage of massive amounts of beef components. For more details on renting beef chillers, please contact us today. (MN Rental chiller, Minnesota rental chiller, rent chiller, USA chiller, USA rental chiller, glycol, Dowfrost, Dowtherm SR1.)

Keeping freshly harvested beef carcasses at safe temperatures is necessary for both quality purposes, and for consumer safety. Before beef processing chillers were available, the meat either had to be consumed shortly after slaughter, or preserved through smoking, curing or salting. However, with the invention of refrigerated coolers and vast networks of refrigerated trucks, the process of preserving cuts of meat were made more convenient and practical. Complexities of Chilling Freshly Harvested Beef The chilling of freshly harvested meat has great impact on the meat’s overall quality. Therefore, the precise temperatures of the chillers used are of utmost importance. The amount of muscle retraction left in the animal’s muscles after slaughter has a direct relationship to the meat’s level of tenderness. Within the first 24 hours after beef is slaughtered, rigor mortis develops in the animal’s muscle tissue. The rates of postmortem chilling can impact the development of rigor mortis, which is accompanied by rapid declines in PH levels. Low chilling temperatures will cause these conditions to develop slowly, while high chilling temperatures will cause them to develop more rapidly, resulting in tough meat. Methods of Meat Chilling There are many different methods used for chilling freshly slaughtered meat. Each has a specific purpose and results. Blast Chilling In the United States, the first chilling process used after slaughter is blast chilling. This chiller is given the name, “Hot Box” because it is where the warm carcasses are placed immediately after slaughter when they are still warm. Blast chilling works by the use of rapid air movement with temperatures usually between 28-30 degrees Fahrenheit.  However, initial temperatures are usually lower, because as the warm carcasses of the freshly killed animals are placed into the chiller, its temperature increases steadily until they are cold enough to cause some equilibrium to occur. While there are currently no regulations in the United States that stipulate the precise temperatures in the hot box, fresh meat intended for human consumption is normally chilled immediately after the post mortim inspection and kept at no more than 44.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and offal, or the entrails and internal organs that are used as food,  are kept at a steady 33.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray Chilling Over the last 30 years, spray chilling has been used during the first 14 hours of blast chilling to reduce the shrinkage loss caused by the moisture evaporation from freshly slaughtered animals in order to maintain the freshness and bloom of the meat, as well as to reduce the bacterial count in the meat. Cooler Storage before Fabrication The need to have more storage space for beef carcasses has become more apparent over the last 30 years as meat processing plants in the United States have moved toward more fully integrated boxed beef production facilities, over shipping the carcasses to other locations. Alternative Methods of Chilling There is a wide range of alternative chilling methods available for beef.  They include immersion methods, spray methods and ice-bank systems. A method of ultra-rapid chilling that is executed in three stages,  is of particular interest because it results in substantially improved meat tenderness. Using this method, beef carcasses are quickly chilled in a blast tunnel to a temperature below 59 degrees Fahrenheit. This step is followed by an equilibration stage where temperature is maintained at approximately 50-59 degrees Fahrenheit  for as many as 6 hours. In the final stage the beef carcasses are returned to the blast chilling tunnel for an additional 12 minutes,  and are then placed in an equilibration cold room at 39 degrees Fahrenheit until the next day. This results in reduced drip loss and improved tenderness over traditional blast chilling systems. Contact Us The J.C. Younger Company is a family owned focuses on rental chillers to meet your specific needs.  Please contact us at your earliest convenience for a consultation about the best products for your requirements.