Patent EP-2179653-A1 (EP)
Inventor: VOELKL THOMAS
IPC: A23L13/70
Filed: 2009-10-27
Abstract: The tempering tunnel (1) for boxes that are filled with pieces of meat and stacked on pallets, comprises a front-open housing, a blower (3) to transport an ambient air through an inner space (4) of the housing in a longitudinal direction of the tempering tunnel, and openings present in the front- and rear walls of the stacked boxes standing transverse to the longitudinal direction of the tempering tunnel, where the blower is a suction-blower at a rear closed end of the inner space and the walls of the tempering tunnel are movable in a transverse direction. The tempering tunnel (1) for boxes that are filled with pieces of meat and stacked on pallets, comprises a front-open housing, a blower (3) to transport an ambient air through an inner space (4) of the housing in a longitudinal direction of the tempering tunnel, and openings present in the front- and rear walls of the stacked boxes standing transverse to the longitudinal direction of the tempering tunnel, where the blower is a suction-blower at a rear closed end of the inner space and the walls of the tempering tunnel are movable in a transverse direction, so that they design at the outer surfaces of the stacked boxes. The blower is dimensioned, so that a low pressure develops in a blower box (8) during filling the tempering tunnel and/or a roof (7) is moved in a height, so that it forms at an upper side of the stacked boxes. The blower is arranged onto an upper side of the blower box. The blower box is present at the rear end of the inner space, extends over the entire height of the stacked boxes and the entire width of the stacks, and passes down maximally to a lower edge of the lowest box. The walls and/or the roof consist of foils or plates. The walls and the roof tightly connect to each other and/or the tempering tunnel is formed in a bottomless manner. The walls consisting of foils and the roof are arranged at a carrying frame of the tempering tunnel, which carries the track rollers and/or the wall and the roof consist of insulating foils or two spaced layers of foils. Vertically running spacing ribs are arranged onto one layer of the foil to a side directed towards the other layer of the foil. The two layers of the foils are a single foil guiding around a front deflection bar, which is tightly fastened at the blower box with its both free ends. One of the free ends of the foils is fastened at the rear end of the tempering tunnel using a spring. The deflection bar is a vertically running swivel axle pivotable in the transverse direction, where the swivel axle is arranged at the frame and in an extending direction of the side wall. A further deflection lever is present opposite to the deflection bar related to the swivel axle and forms a two-armed lever with the deflection bar, where the two-armed lever is pivotable around the swivel axle. The deflection bar is outwardly and inwardly pivoted regarding the inner space. The deflection bar is pivoted at 90[deg] from the inner space in direction to a rest position aligned with the side wall and its distance from the swivel axle corresponds to the half of the width of the inner space measured in the transverse direction and/or the front end of the roof is lowerable up to the upper side of the stacked boxes at a height under it. The tempering tunnel has a temperature sensor, which is pluggable in one of the uppermost meat piece of the front box or is connected by a radio with a control of the tempering tunnel, the control of the tempering tunnel is present on the upper side of the roof or on the outer side of the wall in the front area of the tempering tunnel, and/or the boxes tightly adjoin in the transverse direction. The portion of the openings is maximum 20% of the entire surface in the front and rear walls of the boxes, which stand in the transverse direction. The lower edges of the walls are connected with one another over a flat transverse bar in the front area of the tempering tunnel.