584 V. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



glaze with fresh water."" Another effect of penetrating salt is to 

 give the tissues of the fish a firmness superficially resembling rigor 

 mortis. Fish may be soft and flabby before they are frozen in brine, 

 yet after freezing and even after a long period of storage, when 

 they are defrosted, they have a firmness or rigidity that might easily 

 be mistaken for the rigor mortis of perfectly fresh fish. It may 

 be distinguished from true rigor mortis by the fact that, while true 

 rigor disappears after a short time, leaving the fish soft, firmness 

 produced by penetrating brine persists for days, even until decom- 

 position is well advanced. 



PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF OTTESEN'S METHOD 



In practical application Ottesen uses methods similar to those 

 of Rouart. Rappleye. and Henderson — a tank of brine refrigerated 

 by means of pipe coils connecting with a refrigeration machine. An 

 agitating propeller keeps the brine in motion, and the fish are put 

 in metal ba*skets and immersed in the brine. Ottesen's plants have 

 been established at Esbjerg and Skagen, in Denmark ; Henningsvaag, 

 Norway; Gothenberg. Sweden; Abo, Finland; and Ancona, Italy. 



Two plants, operated under Ottesen's patents by Kuhlfisch-Aktien- 

 gesellschaft Wesermiinde. at Wesermiinde and Cuxhaven, Germany, 

 have been described by Walter Schlienz. 51 In the Wesermiinde plant 

 the fish are conveyed from the auction in boxes and dumped into 

 washing tanks, where they are washed well in running w 7 ater. The 

 fish are then packed in wire baskets. By means of a crane these 

 baskets are hoisted and placed in a shallow 7 brine tunnel, or tank, 65 

 feet long, in which apparatus is provided to push the baskets slowly 

 forward at a rate that is variable, so that the journey is made through 

 the tank in from 1 to Sy 2 hours, according to the size of the fish. At 

 the far end of the tunnel the crane again lifts the baskets and lowers 

 them for a moment into a tank of running fresh water to wash off the 

 adhering film of brine. The basket then passes through an aperture 

 in a wall that separates the glazing room from the freezing room. A 

 temperature of about 2Qy 2 ° is maintained in, the glazing room. The 

 glazing tank contains fresh water that is chilled to near the freezing 

 point by the low temperature in the room. The fish, still in the 

 basket, are immersed in this cold water for glazing and are trans- 

 ported to a storage room, where they are taken out of the basket, 

 their heads cut off with a circular saw, and the fish packed 100 pounds 

 to the box, the latter lined with paper. Ammonia compressors are 

 used for refrigeration with electric motor drive. The plant has a 

 capacity of 40,000 pounds per day, and provision is made for increas- 

 ing this capacity to 160,000 pounds. 



The Cuxhaven plant has the same capacity as that at Wesermiinde 

 and operates on the same general principles, with some differences in 

 detail. The fish are packed in w T ire baskets that are rather long and 

 narrow and suspended from both ends by a crane. The latter is 



r *See also. Petersen, U. S. Patent 1388298, 1021. 



61 Die Tiefkiihlanlagen fur Fische in Deutschland und der Handel mit Kiihlfiseh. Jahres- 

 bericht iiber die deutsche Fischerei, 1925, 23 pp. See also, M. Hirsch. Das Kuhlfisehwerk 

 Cuxhaven. Zeitschrift fiir die gesamte Kalte-Industrie, Heft 4. Jahrgang 23, April, 1926 ; 

 W. Schlienz. Die Neue Wege im Fischbandel. Deutsche Fischhandel, Interessenblatt fiir 

 die gesamte Fischwirtschaft, Nr. 20-21, November, 1925. Berlin. 



