UTILIZATION OF SHltlMr WASTE 



117 



bushels per hour capacity can be easily operated by one man. This 

 meal can be stored without danger of spoilage as long as kept out of 

 direct rain; humid weather does not ail'ect it. It is a line, dry 

 product with no disagreeable odor. The yield approximates 540 

 pounds per ton of raw shrimp waste. 



Chemical anali/sis. — Typical analyses of meals prei)ared by the 

 above method are given in Table 3. The composition of the material 

 would vary slightly with the season, upon the amount of shrimp meat 

 thrown into the waste, and on the nature of the green stock, depend- 

 ing on whether it was heads or peeled waste. 



The calcium phosphate and the high protein content should make 

 this material a valuable poultry feed. Furthermore, the high iodine 

 content of the meal is new to poultry feeds and should be expected 

 to have the same beneficial effects on poultry and egg production as 

 this substance has on other animals. The nature of the fat is not 

 known, and its vitamin content is now being studied. 



Table 3. 



-Chemical composition of experimental meals prejmrcd by the nonacid 

 uater-cook method 



ACID WATER-COOK METHOD 



The initial procedure to be followed in the acid cook processing is 

 similar to that of the nonacid cook. The difference in the procedure 

 is at the cooking vats, where the operator must add slowly with rapid 

 stirring 5 pounds of chamber acid (brown sulphuric acid of com- 

 merce) to every 100 pounds of the wet stock. This should be added 

 just when the mass comes to a boil. In a few minutes the mass is 

 neutral, the acid having reacted with the calcium carbonate found 

 in the shell material of the shrimp heads. The cooked heads can 

 then be dumped onto a platform or piled up and left to accumulate 

 for a day or two to await attention when the canning plant 

 operations do not require the laborers. One of the advantages 

 of this method lies in the preservative action of the acid on the 

 shrimp stock, permitting the stock to be laid aside for a day or 

 so, should the weather be too inclement for platform drying or 

 (he help become scarce because of the rush in the canning plant. 

 It also increases the yield over that of the nonacid cook. The yield 

 of meal with approximately 8 per cent moisture is about 750 pounds 

 from 1 ton of the raw shrimp wa.ste. The worn out cooking vats can 

 be utilized for cooking the heads, thus cutting the cost of extra cook- 

 ing equipment to zero. The coils in the vats are usually galvanized 

 and last for only a season or two, when too much iron becomes ex- 

 posed to use for cooking shrimp meat. These vats can be put into 

 use as waste shrimp cookers until they are exhausted. 



