Shelling crab without damaging flesh - by longitudinal cutting to depth controlled by crab thickness scanner

摘要

Crabs (10) stored in similar positions, esp. tail-first in a magazine (12) are delivered one by one to a rotary cutter (13) whose blade (20) is moved vertically through a distance determined by a scanner (27) monitoring the crab thickness, and thus ensuring that only the shell itself is cut through, without affecting the flesh (229. While held, pref. by sucking against a continuously rotating conveyor belt (11), the opened crab has the two sides of the cut slot shaped and is conveyed to a flesh extractor (14) whose rotating arms (49) with their angled ends extract the accessible flesh. In the course of further rotation, the flesh is sepd. by a stripper (24) and drops on to a conveyor (15). ADVANTAGE - Crabs are opened up at rapid rate, with no damage to shelled flesh.