vacuum, fluid action, gas pressure, shearing, 

 and scraping. A completely operative mechan- 

 ical system for shucking and eviscerating 

 scallops has not been available, however, until 

 recently. 



The purpose of our study was to determine 

 whether a prototype mechanical processing 

 method, as described herein, would adversely 

 change the quality and yield of the finished 

 scallop meats significantly or present other 

 problems as compared with hand processing. 

 In this study, the prototype unit developed by 

 E. Willis (1968, personal communication) was 

 used. 



QUALITY 



Materials and Methods 



The bay scallops (Aequipecten irradians) 

 used in this experiment were harvested from 

 Core Sound, N.C. (34°40' N., 76°3r W.) , chilled 

 at 3° C. for 48 hours, and randomly divided into 

 two sample lots — namely, the control lots and 

 the experimental lots. The control lots were 

 processed by hand, using standard commercial 

 techniques. The experimental lots were pro- 

 cessed with the prototype mechanical unit. 



Processing a control sample by the standard 

 commercial technique involved opening the 

 scallop, removing the viscera, and cutting the 

 muscle free from the shell by hand with a scal- 

 lop-shucking knife. The shucked meats were 

 rinsed in tap water on a stainless-steel, perfor- 

 ated screen for 2 minutes, drained, and packed 

 in 8-pound metal containers. The containers 

 were sampled immediately and the samples 

 were placed in 1-pound Whirl-pac' bags. The 

 samples for fresh storage (3° C.) were iced 

 and those for frozen storage (—27° C.) were 

 frozen immediately with liquid nitrogen. 



Processing the experimental samples in- 

 volved using the prototype system, which was 

 a unitized, semiautomatic, mechanical process 

 that could be completed in 8 to 10 minutes. It 

 operated as follows : 



1. A loading conveyor (fig. 1) carried the 

 whole scallop shell stock between rotating 

 metal rollers and into a hot-water (95° 

 C.) , heat-shocking tank (fig. 2) . The shell 



stock remained in the shocking tank 10 

 to 12 seconds. 



The scallops were conveyed from the 

 shocking tank through a second set of ro- 

 tating metal rollers, which loosened the 

 shell from the adductor muscle and viscera 

 (fig. 3). 



The adductor muscle and viscera re- 

 mained attached to each other and were 

 subsequently separated from the larger 

 shell fragments by transfer onto a vibrat- 

 ing screen (fig. 4). This screen was 

 equipped with a shower of cold, fresh 

 water and was perforated with li/t-inch 

 holes, which were large enough to retain 

 the larger shell fragments but small 

 enough to allow the meat, viscera, and 

 small shell fragments to discharge into a 

 wire-mesh basket located below the dis- 

 charge pipe (fig. 5). 



'The use of trade names is merely to facilitate de- 

 scription; no endorsement is implied. 



Figure 1. — Shell stock loading conveyor for delivery to 

 the rotating metal rollers. 



