The present invention relates to a cooking method and apparatus and in particular to such an apparatus specifically designed to cook shrimp.
In the past, a wide variety of cooking systems have been provided from simple pots to complex automated cooking ovens. Ovens having continuous conveyor belts have been provided in the past. These typically cook bakery products, and the like, and have electric or gas heating elements for baking cookies, bread, or the like, on conveyor belts passing through continuous ovens. This type of oven has a continuous flow of air at atmospheric pressure and is typically heated with electrical heat so that there is no build up of pressure as would be desirable in cooking seafood.
Shrimp are prepared utilizing a wide variety of prior art cooking methods and devices. In commercial cooking methods, however, it is generally customary to heat the shrimp with steam while applying pressure from an external source. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,317 to Veltman. In other methods such as the Hice U.S. Pat. No. 3,672,908, pressure from an external source is also applied prior to as well as during the heating of the shrimp.
An object of shrimp cooking processes is to avoid the weight loss during the heating step. As explained by Veltman, the cooking of shrimp in water, or an aqueous solutions, often causes a weight loss of between 30-50 percent resulting in a higher cost per pound of cooked shrimp.
Another object in any cooking process is to destroy or remove the bacteria present in the shrimp. Although acceptable for commercial purposes, many, if not most commercial shrimp cooking processes cannot remove bacteria below a 250,000 per gram plate count.
This invention is an improvement in my prior inventions set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,524 for a Shrimp Cooking Apparatus and my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,966,072 for a Shrimp Cooking Apparatus. In those patents, a shrimp cooking apparatus used a frame having a motor driven endless belt conveyor with porous endless belts supported to the frame and a housing similar to the present invention. The steam is released directly beneath the belt and under the shrimp to heat the shrimp as they passed through the housing. In contrast, the present invention improves upon the prior systems by improving the housing which uses thin layers of stainless steel spaced by insulation to conserve energy in the system but which is reinforced with support brackets interconnected with a lifting mechanism formed in supporting upright channels and driven by central electric motors driving shafts to raise and lower the entire housing.