Leading Australian wastewater treatment company CST Wastewater Solutions recently installed a gut washer at Thomas Foods International in Murray Bridge, South Australia.
Broadly applicable to meat and agricultural industries across Australia, CST’s latest gut washer technology is configured to wash and then flush digested matter from cut paunch material, producing a better grade of tallow and added value for Thomas Foods. A combination of mutton and beef is washed at a rate of approximately 10,600kg per hour from the abattoir’s daily processing.
Gut washing is a standard meat industry practice where it is common to use 6-12mm trommel screens, which simply drain the cut gut with no consideration given to washing.
With the CST gut washer, the cut gut is fed via a transition chute to the rotary screen/gut washer consisting of an external entry swirl chamber with two off-set flanged recycled wash water inlets. The cut gut is then swirled with 10 times its volume of water. The swirl water used can process water, including kill floor and chiller water.
On entry to the screen, this water is removed for further recycling before the solids are sprayed via the product wash sparge arrangement with fresh water before final dewatering. CST’s gut washer utilises a 2.8mm wedgewire gap on the screen to optimise washing and flushing.
CST Wastewater Solutions Sales Manager, Mr Peter Bambridge comments that Thomas Foods International is very happy with the performance and efficiency of the unit. The gut washer features guarding for safety and improves the downstream results, which is highly beneficial to Thomas Foods.
Mr Bambridge adds that the capture rate is much better with the washing resulting in a cleaner, higher quality product that leads to more easily sold by-products such as tallow and meat meal.
CST Wastewater Solutions has installed several screens throughout the meat industry based on 20+ years of process and application knowledge.
