Patent ID: 8347639

Claim:
An apparatus for treating a carcass comprising a surface freezing section and a tempering section: wherein the surface freezing section includes a pair of jet flow generator units, one of the jet flow generator units being made from a slit nozzle plate having a number of slits and the other of the jet flow generator units being made from a hole nozzle plate having a number of holes, wherein the carcass is transferred between the slit nozzle plates and the hole nozzle plates in an attitude that the abdominal cavity side of the carcass faces the slit nozzle plates and the skin side of the carcass faces the hole nozzle plates, whereby surface freezing the subcutaneous tissue part of the carcass is performed by cold air jets blowing cold air out from the slits and holes of the slit nozzle plates and hole nozzle plates at a temperature of −20˜−40° C., which is equal or lower than the freezing point of a subcutaneous tissue part of the carcass, to impinge on to the skin side and abdominal cavity side of the carcass so as to freeze the subcutaneous tissue part of the carcass from the surface to about 20 mm below the surface, thereby producing a frozen layer, and wherein the tempering section performs tempering at a low temperature of 0˜15° C. and high humidity to allow the carcass to be lowered in core temperature by releasing heat from the core part to the frozen layer to unfreeze the layer and attain equalization of temperature of the carcass, thereby making the core temperature reach a final target temperature rapidly.