112 BULLETIN 908, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The waste in the sardine industry offers excellent material for the 

 preparation of a high-grade fish-meat meal. This waste, as it comes 

 from the packing table, has been steam cooked and partially dried, 

 so that it can be taken after collection from the packing table directly 

 to a plant equipped for pressing and drying. The advisability of 

 producing fish meal in a small unit plant attached to the individual 

 canneries or at a central plant devoted exclusively to this purpose is a 

 question for the individual canneries to decide, and depends upon 

 various considerations, such as the location and administration of the 

 plant. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. It would 

 seem that a cooperative arrangement might be satisfactorily worked 

 out. The prime consideration is to hasten the utilization of the total 

 waste as a by-product for animal feeding purposes. 



Looking toward the utilization of this waste material as a stock 

 food, a quantity of fish-meat meal was prepared in an experimental 

 way during the course of this investigation. Six different lots were 

 made under slightly varying conditions on a small commercial scale, 

 and the yield of the dry material and of the oil determined. 



The waste material used in all these experiments was taken directly 

 from the packing tables to a small fertilizer plant previously thor- 

 oughly cleaned, which was equipped with an iron steam cooker, a 

 rack, and cloth No. 2 screw press capable of yielding a pressure of 

 120 tons, and an ordinary type rotary fertilizer drier having a capacity 

 of 1,800 pounds of dry material. Table 42 shows the treatment given 

 the raw material, the composition of the raw material and of samples 

 taken during the process, the method of treatment, and the yield of 

 fish meal and oil. 



Lots 1 and 2, which were taken out of the drier much too soon 

 and which" therefore contained too much water, did not keep. Lot 1 

 spoiled in the course of a week and lot 2 in about four weeks' time. 

 The meal from both these lots was discarded. 



Since it was desirable to have the moisture content of the material 

 much lower, longer drying periods were adopted in preparing the 

 remaining lots. Drying the meal to a moisture content between 5 

 and 10 per cent resulted in the product keeping satisfactorily. 



The dried meal composing lot 3 had a very strong odor of ammonia 

 when drawn from the drier. This disappeared, however, on cooling 

 and standing overnight. Lot 4 had a faint odor of ammonia when 

 first prepared. No ammonia odor was detected in the two other lots. 



The proportion of whole fish composing the waste used in these 

 experiments varied considerably, as did also the oil content. In the 

 case of very fat fish the oil was expressed in a pure condition, mixed 

 with comparatively little water. 



