66 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN VOL. XIII, 



copper can be sold while deteriorated iron is valueless. The tube 

 joints must be carefully brazed to prevent leakage; they should 

 also be well tinned externally since the free acids in the oil are 

 apt to attack the copper, forming deleterious compounds so that if 

 not properly cleaned every day, there is a certain risk, negligible 

 or non-existent in a perfectly well run factory but which may 

 easily exist if the attendant or superior is negligent. 



61. The best plan of all is that adopted in France, viz., to 

 provide a deep pan with coned or taper bottom sectioned like a V 

 with perpendicular sides above the V: the pan is filled with 

 water to the top of the V, and with oil above the water. Through 

 the oil are carried either the flues of a furnace as described 

 immediately above, or, better, a series or convolution of steam 

 pipes carrying superheated steam ; by the use of steam the oil 

 is readily heated without scorching, so that the oil lasts clean 

 much longer than in any other plan. Moreover the debris from the 

 fish drop through the oil into the water below and to the bottom 

 of the V where they are innocuous and can be drawn off by a 

 waste cock. 



62. In the Beypore Cannery the sand bath is at present in use 

 but it has always been intended to use steam when a superheater 

 can be arranged, or the longitudinal flue system, heated, if 

 possible, by a powerful kerosene horizontal burner from a Fletcher 

 oil burner driven from a pressure reservoir ; this has been delayed 

 by the scarcity and high price of oil and want of the necessary 

 arrangements; both will be tried this season. 



A stand with a slightly sloping tray is placed next to the frier, 

 so that the fried grilles may drain and the surplus oil return to 

 the frier. 



63. Instead of oil frying it is now common to steam the fish by 

 the use of direct 'dry' steam. This involves a strong iron vessel 

 or retort in which the fish are placed in their grilles and pressure 

 steam turned on. At Beypore this has been successfully used for 

 sardines which are sufficiently dried and sterilised by two or 

 three minutes in the steam ; this process is far quicker and less 

 laborious than the oil frying, and though it is considered in France 

 that fried sardines alone are first class, the method seems to be 

 sufficiently good if extra oil is subsequently used (see below para- 

 graphs 95 to 98 and 152 to 155); in America sardines are perhaps 

 more generally steamed than fried. . 



