76 DESCRIPTION OF IMPORTANT FISHERIES AND THEIR PRODUCTS 



stages. Band or gang saws are used in the first two stages to produce 

 thin slabs of frozen fillets. In the final stage, the slabs are cut into sticks 

 using saws or guillotine-type cutting machines. The latter avoid the loss 

 of sawdust, which results when saws are employed, but give less satis- 

 factory sticks in other respects, with such defects as chipping and crack- 

 ing sometimes occurring. 



Battering and Breading Materials. Numerous commercial varieties of 

 batter mixes and breadings are available for use in fish stick manufacture. 

 A typical batter may contain corn meal, grained corn flour, and non-fat 

 dry-milk solids. Breadings may contain, either alone or in combinations, 

 some of the following: ground, soft, winter wheat cereals; cracker meal; 

 potato or soy flour; dried bread crumbs; and more recently, starch or 

 hydrolyzed flour. The color of the cooked fish stick is determined, in part, 

 by the choice of breading. Corn meal breadings tend, for example, to 

 give light yellow shades to the final stick, as compared to the more 

 golden brown shade resulting when wheat cereal types are used. The 

 batter mixture varies greatly but is generally prepared with two parts 

 of dry ingredient to three parts of water. Some processors dust the sticks 

 initially with a thin coat of dry batter mix to aid the main liquid batter 

 in adhering to the stick. 



Coating of Fish Sticks. In operations employing fully automatic bread- 

 ing and battering equipment, the fish sticks are conveyed from the cutting 

 stage to an unscrambling device where they are separated into equally 

 spaced rows. They then pass along a belt beneath a manifold from which 

 the batter flows down in the form of a curtain over the sticks, which 

 are moving at right angles to the batter flow. Some excess batter collects 

 in a depression beneath the belt and coats the lower side of the sticks 

 as they move ahead. The rest drains into a tank from which it is pumped 

 back to the manifold. 



A similar operation then takes place in the breading machine, where 

 the dry breading compound is applied to all surfaces. Mechanical devices 

 such as rollers or a series of ascending and descending flexible rings may 

 press against the sticks to aid in getting a firm adhesion of the breading 

 compound to the surface of the sticks. Excess breading is usuafly removed 

 by passing the sticks across a vibrating screen. The sticks may be inspected 

 at this point to remove any apparent signs of defects. Sticks to be packed 

 raw pass from this point directly to the packing line; otherwise, they 

 move on to the cookcM-. 



Cooking of Fish Sticks. T ish sticks are cooked in either continuous or 

 batch cookers. In a typical continuous cooking operation, the sticks 

 from the breader travel on a conveyor through the cooker which may 

 be about 5 feet wide and 30 feet long and which may have a capacity 

 of 250 gallons of oil. The sticks pass through the cooker in 25 to 35 sec- 



