Good morning, I am thinking of building a scalding tank for when we butcher our broilers.

Just curious if anyone here has ever made one?

I have looked a little online it looks like people have built them using a hot water heater element and thermostat.

Just figured i'd check here for any suggestions and tips you guys might have.

Thank you, and have a nice day!

Corey

I don't know how many chickens you do.

I find a turkey fryer works well for maybe a couple dozen before it gets a little funky. If you need bigger, you can find stainless steel stock pots fairly cheap. My big beer brew pot works well for bigger quantities, but, is a bit heavy and somewhat expensive to justify for occasional use.

X2

We will do a couple hundred this year T-Rex. I am giving my wife one of those tub pluckers for our anniversary tomorrow, and it sounds like they work better if you have the scalding water around 145 degrees. I'm afraid I won't be able to be very precise with my propane burner and pot.

55gallon stainless steel drum , cut at the rib 2/3 of the way up with a angle grinder, dig a hole and put the turkey frier down in the hole with concrete blocks for the barrel to sit on make a wood handle for the lid , and drill a hole top put the thermometer in fire it up on high get it up to temp witht he lid on, wear a thick rubber glove and dunk 2 at a time agitating up and down , test a feather , you have to keep watching temp and and get a rhythm going and you can do a lot of chickens.

my plucker takes 2 birds at a time so scalding 2 at a time makes sense

I stopped scalding and started skinning them yrs ago...i do 55-60 at a time and turkeys...so its just easier and faster for me and smells better.

Just think of all the fat , cholesterol, and flavor you lose that way. Skinless chicken is just bird meat.

I have never ever seen a 55gal stainless steel drum, where do you get one and at what cost?

It's interesting to me that you notice a "smell". When I was a little kid I helped butcher chickens. The smell of dunk chickens in the scalding water got to me. To this day I can't eat dark meat chicken because it brings back that smell in the taste.

thats what im talking about,,dunked chickens

That's the smell! We used to butcher chickens at my grandmas out in the country. They stopped making me go after a while. It was my teenage years before I could even eat white meat chicken.

I have no problem with castor, skunk, mink, weasel, stinky coyotes. I have gut deer, elk, wild hogs, beaver, bear, etc. But, there is no smell as putrid as chicken feathers dunked in hot water. And the more you dunk, the worse it gets.

We use to butcher chickens all day and have fried chicken for supper that night. Wet feathers is just part of it. Butchered last year, smells the same as it did when I was a kid. Nothing better then home grown.

Check out www.feathermanequipment.com



B

much quicker to skin one and not have to boil water etc,,,done both ways but no more scalding for me. To each his own.

Amen to that!

a friend got it , it had chocolate sauce or something in it , as long as they are clean SS isn't a big concern he told me it was SS but now that I think about it it didn't cut any harder than a normal barrel , any way it was supposed to be food grade , when I finished cutting it down I dug a hole in my garden and put some condrete blocks around and made a heck of a wood fire and boiled it for hours to make sure it would hold and work

we did a run of 100 birds together , he kept the scald tank , I had all the money in the plucker so I have the plucker and he has the barrel he kept a lot more of his 50 chickens , I sold enough of mine to pay off the plucker , I made ti frm the Wiz-bang plucker book.

Thinking of the smell of scalding chicken makes me think of church. From an early age (first grade to start) until I left home, Sundays were chicken dinner days and I was the butcher. Twice a month or so Mom would invite the Pastor and his wife, so at day light I'd be scalding and plucking two or three stinking chickens and the smell would stick to my hands all through the service and maybe another day or two, but in that hot little church-house and all dressed up it seemed to stink worse than a paper mill next to a feed lot.

Thanks for the explanation GCPete. imho, 5gal is plenty to heat at one time, unless the plucker could handle 6-10 birds at once. Pluckers, I know less than nothing though.

For highly corrosive chemicals and salvage of leaking drums, very expensive. If you want SS, you'd be better off having one fabricated somewhere.

Most Beer kegs are stainless. Once you drink the beer you’re only out the small deposit. Distrbuters may sell old ones but I’m not sure.

my plucker does 2 birds about every 30-40 seconds

It would be faster if I had a larger motor . and could probably do 3 at a time but since I had the motor and it didn't cost me anything this works

scald then turn on power , water , it has it's own shower head let get up to speed takes a few seconds 1/2 horse when it should be a 3/4 when I hear the capacitor kick out drop 2 chickens they take 20-30 seconds tumbling around turn off power turn off water set them in the pan to go to the evisceration table , repeat