Canning meat

sumi, I am sort of new here and really don't know you. So tell us if you water bath can things and if you have ever pressure canned anything. When you say from start to finish could mean a large amount to teach. All the above comments give you great advice if you have canned "something" before.

I think canning meat is in my near future! Freezer space is becoming precious and hubby is appreciating how much freezer space I've free-ed up by canning our produce. We have a deer and sheep hanging now to process this coming weekend. I am certainly a rule-follower when it comes to canning! I will be pressure canning from USDA and/or University Extension guidelines!

Hay tortoise, You are doing the right thing. When you learn something you should go to well respected and correct info. Learn correctly until you are well acquainted with what you are doing and the reasons why you are doing them. If I see a new thing that seems different I look it up before I decide to do it the new way. Always better to be safe than sorry.

So tortoise?? Do you have torts????

LOL! no torts! When I joined the forum, I had a betta fish named Tortoise and was trying to do a self-contained ecosystem. Unsuccessful for my lack of research. Funny, I have a second betta fish named Tortoise (9 years later!), and am working on self-sufficient luxury fish keeping. Because... what else to do in my spare time since I left Facebook? Tortoise the Second is in a planted bowl, which I use to propagate stem cuttings too. I use fish bowl water to fertilize my houseplants. Tortoise the Second likes to eat fruit flies and tiny bits of leftover fish from our supper. I am scheming to make homemade fish food someday when I have nothing better to do.

@waretrop I've done neither before. I am fairly new to canning and completely new to the concept of canning meat, which interests me, so I'm asking on behalf of myself and whoever is reading this forum, for info, tips, tutorials etc. I'd like to give this a go sometime. Freezer space is limited here too and this sounds like a wonderful alternative to preserve meat and listening to the "reviews" from the canning members, a yummy way too!

You need to begin with reading the Ball book from front to back. Keep in mind when you are reading how you get temperatures to be high enough to kill off certain bacteria and other bad things in certain foods. Also pay attention and learn what foods are low acid and hi acid.

You can get the same info on line but if you know nothing you don't know if what you are reading, is correct. A company like Ball must teach you correctly and must teach you all the rules about foods and safety.

Once you have learned the very basic stuff, if you see a recipe on line you will know if it is safe or not.



It is very easy to can meat. You just have to do it correctly. Learn the basics first and all the other pieces will fall into place for you.

I guess what I am trying to say is, you are talking about 2 different subjects. How to can and why, and how to can meats.....it must be learned in that order....

So hear it is. You can raw pack chicken of all kinds. With or without skin and bone, you can add flavors, you can do it with or without liquids.



It may not look pretty but it is a nice thing to have on the pantry shelf along with what you have in the freezer. It is great for a quick meal as well as a very special but easy meal.

I think meat in the jar is pretty, though not as pretty as most things canned up. I especially find the stock pretty....golden, amber, sometimes almost mauve...it's a pretty sight.



In the pic below, the older hens are in the jar on the left and the younger cockerels in the jar on the right...age definitely makes for a different product, a much more flavorful meat.




CX meat is not as dark as older, DP birds, so it's not quite as pretty a jar...sort of looks like a pathology specimen. They don't make as pretty stock either, light in color like the meat. Yield much more meat per bird, though, so if a person can hold them over until they are older and free range them for more flavor, they make a passable product....not my favorite, but still chicken.

@sumi , you can find older Ball or Kerr booklets on canning on Amazon and Ebay really cheap and the older ones are the more prized versions. They pretty much cover the basics on canning meat, so you can learn about canning at the same time you learn about canning meat. It's not rocket science and it doesn't have to be this rule bound scary process like most make it out, it's mostly just good ol' common sense.

If you've got common sense, canning comes easy....if not, it suddenly becomes this frustrating, fearful undertaking wherein one doesn't know what to do and which advice to follow.

Guidelines are everywhere including the web. Make sure there are no nicks in the jars. I feel like you can raw pack meat chunks tighter than cooked but the only meat I have canned was cubes of venison. I raw packed it poured boiling water with a 1/2 tsp. salt per pint jar. I only used this for gravy in the morning on biscuits because I had a lot in the freezer for other purposes. If I had know how much we loved it I would have tried canning most or all of it. It would have made great hash, soups, stews, chili or with sour cream stirred into it and served over noodles to name a few things.

We love our deer canned so much that we stopped doing anything else with the meat many years ago. We normally only cut the tenderloin and backstraps into butterfly steaks and the rest of the deer goes into the jar, jerked or ground for burger. Last year we tried grinding it prior to canning it and that became our new favorite way of having deer meat...incredible flavor and juiciness, with great versatility in recipes. Makes for a super quick meal. That was the first time we ever canned deer into pints, which seemed the perfect size for most recipes as the meat is more compacted into the jars.

Thanks for the info and pics and the tip about the book! I was wondering where I can get a copy. I will definitely look for one.

I plan to start breeding chickens next year, as soon as I'm on a bigger property and it's warm enough for the little ones. Extra cockerels and any culls from the flock that are not getting sold are going to end up either in the freezer, or in cans. That canned chicken sounds like a wonderful quick meal idea for this often busy, dinner-in-a-rush mom

I also plan to raise a pig or two and maybe a sheep (space allowing) for meat for our own use, as the supermarket stuff is usually fairly expensive and leaves some to be desired, after we got used to our own homegrown. So I am exploring options for preserving large amounts of meat, come processing time.