Hardee's Food Systems, Inc.

Fast Food Merchandisers, Inc.

Philip P Sabin

Robert E Richardson

Ground beef at 28.degree.-31.degree. F. ground to pass through 3/32-1/8 inch grinder outlet openings is spread laterally and sheeted on a moving conveyor belt to a desired patty thickness with minimum pressure and working. The sheet passes under an endless track of transversally extending bars having a pattern of hexagonal cells cooperatively formed in their outer faces. The bars are mounted to chains which are entrained about sprockets that are driven to match the surface speed of the sheet conveyor. Intermediate the longitudinal extent of the lower run of the track of cutter bars, the cutters are gradually cammed down to abutment with the sheet conveyor, and gradually out of the sheet. At the downstream end, the hexagonal patties move over a fluidized bed-type transfer plate onto a take away conveyor, e.g. into a blast freezer, as a narrow selvage at both lateral margins drop away for recycling. As the patties are cooked, they become approximately if not perfectly round, displaying an appearance and texture more like hamburgers from homemade, handformed meat patties.

Method and apparatus for forming meat patties having a

A heated platen with a downwardly-facing surface is provided with an upwardly-accessible handle, and with coordinately height-adjustable legs, the feet of which are adapted to stand on a grill as a food product such as a hamburger patty is simultaneously cooked from below by the grill and from above by the heated platen. By preference, the downwardly-facing heated surface is covered by a replaceable non-stick surface layer in the form of polytetrafluoroethylene-impregnated glass fiber cloth. The platen preferably is heated by on-board electrical resistance heating units, controlled from an off-board control panel to which it is connected by leads from an on-board temperature sensor, and an electrical power cable. Where the device is intended for use in a limited menu restaurant, an adjuster for the leg length may be calibrated by product designation, so that a user need only move the adjuster knob to a designation corresponding to the food being cooked in order to place the platen at the correct height above the grill cooking surface for contacting and lightly pressing down on the food without applying excessive compression.

Growing community of inventors

Nashville, NC, United States of America

Philip P Sabin