CHAPTER 23 



Free2,ing and Cold Storage 



J. W. Slavin 



Artificial freezing of fishery products was introduced in 1861 by Enoch 

 Piper of Camden, Maine^^ He used a mixture of crushed ice and salt in 

 pans to freeze fish laid out on racks within an insulated chamber. After 

 freezing, the frozen fish were glazed with water and transferred to an in- 

 sulated chamber equipped with vertical metal tubes filled with the salt- 

 ice freezing mixture. Patents on the freezing of fish were granted in 1869 

 to W. Davis and in 1875 to W. and S. H. Davis of Detroit, Michigan. 

 Their method consisted of packing the fish in metal pans with tight fitting 

 covers and then placing the ''cans" of fish in insulated bins with alternate 

 layers of salt and ice. Many other patents of less importance were issued 

 during this period for the freezing of fish with eutectic ice. 



The most important advance in the artificial refrigeration of fish was 

 the use of ammonia refrigerating machines for freezing and cold storing 

 fish in 1892 at Sandusky, Ohio. At the beginning of this century many 

 different types of freezing equipment were introduced for fisheries appli- 

 cation. Brine-freezing systems were developed by Taylor, Zarotschenzeff , 

 Petersen, Kolbe, Ottesen, and others, but with the advent of packaged 

 foods these early methods were discarded in favor of direct-contact and 

 air-blast freezing. Freezing on refrigerated coils, or sharp freezing, was 

 also introduced in this period, and this method is still being used to a 

 limited degree for freezing whole fish. 



The marketing of frozen fishery products began in 1926 with a ship- 

 ment of frozen fish from New York to Detroit in a railroad car refriger- 



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