Fish unloaded by sluicing generally go directly to the butchering 

 area. It is conmon to have an arrcingeraent whereby fish not sufficiently 

 thawed can be diverted by opening a gate so that they are sluiced into a 

 thawing tank. After these fish have finished thawing, they are released 

 back into the sluiceway which carries then again into the butchering room. 



Thawing of fish in tanks is generally done only in the larger plants. 

 More frequently the fish are allowed to thaw by spreading them in a 

 single layer on the floor and allowing them to thaw either without other 

 aid or more frequently by sprays of water from an overhead pipe spray- 

 system. In a few plants the fish are placed in piles and thawed by 

 spraying water from a hose at intervals. Even some of the larger plants 

 use spray rathe'r than tank thawing. 



Since fish are in such a variety of stages of thawing, from hard 

 frozen to completely thawed whm they reach the plant, thawing time 

 varies over a wide range. Very frequently, even though the fish were 

 originally frozen aboard the vessel, they are sufficiently thawed by 

 the time they reach the butchering table that they can be butchered 

 forthwith. In many other cases the relatively short wait from the time 

 they reach the butchering room until actual butchering starts is sufficient 

 to complete thawing. 



For hard-frozen fish, thawing overnight with sprays is generally 

 onployed which is in most cases sufficient to thaw the fish,. Fish from 

 a vessel are seldom hard-frozen when they reach the plant. In some 

 instances canneries have cold storage rooms in which surplus fish are 

 placed. Such fish can be withdrawn at a suitable time so as to be thawed 

 when canning operations start. 



It was noted in some instances that fish thawed in tanks apparently- 

 lost some weight due to the leaching action of the water. At least the 

 water in several such tanks was quite cloudy. Investigation of this 

 possibility mi^t be worthwhile since only a small loss of fish at 

 current fish prices is sufficient to seriously run up operating costs. 



The amount of labor used in thawing fish even in the plants using 

 the most inefficient set-ups is trivial. Usually men assigied other 

 duties incidentally take care of the thawing operations. Especially in 

 view of the wide variation in degree of hardness of fish to be thawed, 

 employment of any special thawing equipment would not seem feasible. 



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