Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — Transporting Fresh Beef. [ARTICLE]

Transporting Fresh Beef.

Some four or five years ago, Col. E. C. Townsend settled the point, once for all, in regard to the temperature at which fresh beef could be transported, having successfully carried a cargo of meat from Texas to Philadelphia. A degree of cold approaching to freezing ia not required for transporting fresh beef. It is true that such meat would arrive, if kept at 82 degrees during k year, in a sound condition, but the act of freezing meat impairs its quality. It is unnecessary to enter here into an elaborate explanation why such frozen beef is not good. It is sufficient to say that, though merchantable, its price would be very low. Scientific men state that such changes as may take place in beef kept at a very low temperature are more physical than chemical, but, as butchera and consumers pay for the beef, and are ignorant or indifferent as to the scientific facts, if they can help it, they will not touch frozen beef. The self-satisfied party, then, who in winter hangs a leg of mutton out of his window, and allows it to freeze and thaw, and thaw and freeze, will, when he boils or roasts his piece of meat, get a very indifferent leg of mutton. It is fortunate, then, that beef does not require such a low temperature in order to keep perfectly well. The difference of a few degrees of the thermometer is of the greatest help in point of economy of ice and expense of apparatus. If, during the ten or twelve days’ voyage the State of Indiana may take to reach Glasgow, the temperature of the beef-chamber can be kept somewhere between 86 degrees and 40 degrees, the steers which were killed at Hareumus Cove on the 7th of this month will arrive in Glasgow on the 20th of March in the primeet, ripest condition, and, as roast beef or steaks, will undoubtedly delight our Scotch friends.

Scrambling down the ladders of the ship, we make our way below, and witness the construction of the chill-room. First, a given space has had some halfdozen sheathings applied to the iron, ribs and sides of the vessel, as much greater precaution must be used on an iron vessel than on a wooden one. This sbeating is of wood, paper and felt, with certain Hollow spaces to allow the air to pasß through. Beams and rafters are secured to the roof of the chamber, into which hooks |are driven, on which the quarters of beef are to be suspended. In the middle of the space is the ice-room, which has a cubical area of some 10,000 feet, and will hold some thirty-seven tons of ice. This room has a tin floor and has sides of galvanized iron, with gutters to carry off the dissolved ice. In this room there 1 is a fan-blower, which is worked from the deck above by a small steam engine, the band running from the fly-wheel of the engine to the blower. Of course the 3,000 horse power of the steamer will never miss the little steam this tiny jackass-engine requires. The blower is separated by a wooden box from the ice-room, though in the midst of i. The ice-chamber is made as tight as can be, only at the bottom there are certain openings where the air can escape. From the blower runs two long wooden boxes or canals, if you please to call them so, which go away back to the very further end of the meat-chamber. Now, suppose we follow the method employed right through. First, the ice-room is filled with ice. Now the sides of beef are hung on the hooks in the meat-cham-ber, the ice-room being separated entirely from the beef chamber. Now the engine is started. It sacks the air up from the beef chamber bv means of the wooden airpumps, draws this air into the ice-room, then throws it out again into the beef chamber, and so on, all the way through, over and over again, until the voyage is ended and the beef landed at its destination. The whole working is very {icrfect, all the equivalents of cold, of atent heat, of temperatures, of the melting the ice, have been so carefully studied, having due regard to apace, etc., that thirty-seven tons of ice will keep the 160 cattle which the ship contains in sound order. When the ship arrives, without anybody having touched the ice or added anything to it, some ice will still be left in the ice-room; though eighty per cent, of it will have gone. It is questionable whether in summer passages the ice will not have to be renewed to a certain extent; but it is believed that, with the experience gained, even in July and August, the icc-room once filled, it will not be found necessary to replenish it. Of course, in winter, a't present temperatures, some of the difficulties have been removed in keeping the beef, Should the trade, however ? develope, and be a constant business, it is probable that the beef, before being put on shipboard during the summer, wiil be first refrigerated to about the proper temperature, and then put in the ship’s chill-room. At sea some small amount of care is necessary, which devolves oh the vessel’s engineer. The little engine which runs the blower must be kept up to its work, and thermometers in various parte of the beefchamber most be looked at. If the beef is- getting too cold, the movement of the fan or blower must be retarded. If the chamber is warming up, the speed of the engine must be increased. On the Spain, a huge ship, one chillroom for 180 slaughtered cattle has been for some time in successful. operation. While examining the State of Indiana a party of the workmen left in order to construct a second chill-room on the Spain, which is to have the capacity of holding 160 more cattle; so that with the ice-rooms, holding some seventy-five tons of ice, the Spain will carry out 840 dressed beeves.— AT. T. Timet .