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Buying canned meats is doable but they never taste real good to me. So figured I'd can my own. That's how Gramma had venison all year, so why not us? And why not every type of meat we eat?
We've since canned hamburger, bacon, ham hocks, pork country spare ribs, beef roast (cubed), corned beef, chicken and turkey, and now, pork sirloin.
We went to Costco last Saturday and I had "check beef" on my shopping list. In my vernacular, that means check the beef prices. They were pretty good, but what caught my eye was the pork sirloin. $1.69 a pound!
So we bought three of them to put up. Since each package was close to 10 pounds, we ended up with 28.11 lbs of pork sirloin.
Let's get busy!
First thing to do is to clean all your work surfaces, don't want cooties in the meat! I wash counter top, cutting boards, and the table with hot soapy water and then wipe it down with a Clorox wipe.
After setting Skyowl to chopping meat into usable chunks, I gathered the spices and supplies necessary.
The small metal "shot glasses" are wonderful. If using more than just salt and pepper, it's much easier to put all the seasoning destined for one jar into one little prep bowl for addition to the jar. That way, too, if you gab while canning, you don't stand there and wonder if you put the salt into THAT jar. I got them at Wal-Mart, they were about 3 for a dollar. You can get glass ones, but I figured these would last forever.
So, measured 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of white pepper, 1 Tbs of garlic powder (must keep vampires away!), 1 Tbs of the ranch dressing powder, and 1 tsp of onion powder into each of 7 condiment prep cups.
Gathered my rings and lids, got a tea kettle going for hot water and started the pressure cooker water to heating. Got a small pan of water heating for the lids. At this point in time, all 4 burners on the stove are going - pressure cooker water heating, 2 tea pots heating water, small pan for lids.
Poured about 1/2 a cup a vinegar into a bowl and about 1/2 a cup into the water in the pressure cooker. We'll use the bowl later. We pour some into the canner to keep water deposits from forming on the jars.
Okay, time to put the lids into hot water, they shouldn't boil, just get hot enough to soften up the rubberized rings on the underside.
We took a clean jar, emptied one of the prep bowls of spices into the jar and added a bit of water to mix up all the good stuff, we've found if you don't do this, sometimes the spices just sit on the bottom.
May not make any difference flavor-wise, but, hey! Then you start stuffing in the meat. Add a little more water to cover the meat. I use a chopstick (metal might scratch the jar, weakening it) to poke about in there to get any air bubbles out. If you don't do that, as it boils off, you may end up with a jar of meat only 3/4ths full of juice and your meat will dry out, even though in a jar. After getting all the bubbles out, add more water to cover the meat if necessary. You should not fill further than the bottom of the neck of the jar.
Now is when the bowl of vinegar comes in. No matter how careful you are, when working with meat, you WILL get some meat specks and/or grease on the rim of the jar. A clean rag will remove specks but not grease. Grease or specks on the rim WILL keep your jar from sealing. So we dip a clean paper towel into vinegar and use that to wipe the top of the jar and make sure it's clean. Then add the hot lid and ring.
and put the jar into the pressure canner.
Repeat until you are out of meat or out of room. Each jar holds about 1.5 lbs of pork in this canning. My pressure canner holds 7 quarts, so have 10.5 lbs in each load.
Put the lid on the pressure canner and turn up the heat until it's blowing steam out of the vent hole. Let it blow steam for about 10 minutes and then put on the weight and let the pressure build.
The Ball Blue Book says that pork needs 10 lbs of pressure, so I try to keep it somewhere between 10 and 13 lbs. It takes 90 minutes for quarts of meat at pressure. Once you get the pressure to 10 lbs, set your timer for 90 minutes.
When the 90 minutes were up, we turned the heat off and let the pressure fall naturally. It takes about 2.5 hours for each load to get up to pressure and then back down. Plan your time accordingly!
Once the pressure is back to normal, remove the jars from the canner, put them on a rack or on towels to cool down. They will probably be greasy, it boils out some of the juice. Once cool, I wash them to clean off the grease and remove the rings. WRITE THE DATE ON THE LID. Don't think you'll remember it, you won't!
Then store them! I cleaned a spot in my meat shelves for the 14 quarts we did up. We saved about 7 lbs of that 28 for pork chops.
How do I use it? Last week I opened one of the country sparerib jars we'd put up and made a butter and flour rue then dumped the juice into the skillet and made gravy. Then dumped in the meat to heat in the gravy. Boiled up some egg noodles and heated some of the green beans we'd put up also. Had pork in gravy on noodles with some of the best green beans you can get!
Always remember when canning, The Ball Blue Book is your friend!
We've since canned hamburger, bacon, ham hocks, pork country spare ribs, beef roast (cubed), corned beef, chicken and turkey, and now, pork sirloin.
We went to Costco last Saturday and I had "check beef" on my shopping list. In my vernacular, that means check the beef prices. They were pretty good, but what caught my eye was the pork sirloin. $1.69 a pound!
So we bought three of them to put up. Since each package was close to 10 pounds, we ended up with 28.11 lbs of pork sirloin.
Let's get busy!
First thing to do is to clean all your work surfaces, don't want cooties in the meat! I wash counter top, cutting boards, and the table with hot soapy water and then wipe it down with a Clorox wipe.
After setting Skyowl to chopping meat into usable chunks, I gathered the spices and supplies necessary.
The small metal "shot glasses" are wonderful. If using more than just salt and pepper, it's much easier to put all the seasoning destined for one jar into one little prep bowl for addition to the jar. That way, too, if you gab while canning, you don't stand there and wonder if you put the salt into THAT jar. I got them at Wal-Mart, they were about 3 for a dollar. You can get glass ones, but I figured these would last forever.
So, measured 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of white pepper, 1 Tbs of garlic powder (must keep vampires away!), 1 Tbs of the ranch dressing powder, and 1 tsp of onion powder into each of 7 condiment prep cups.
Gathered my rings and lids, got a tea kettle going for hot water and started the pressure cooker water to heating. Got a small pan of water heating for the lids. At this point in time, all 4 burners on the stove are going - pressure cooker water heating, 2 tea pots heating water, small pan for lids.
Poured about 1/2 a cup a vinegar into a bowl and about 1/2 a cup into the water in the pressure cooker. We'll use the bowl later. We pour some into the canner to keep water deposits from forming on the jars.
Okay, time to put the lids into hot water, they shouldn't boil, just get hot enough to soften up the rubberized rings on the underside.
We took a clean jar, emptied one of the prep bowls of spices into the jar and added a bit of water to mix up all the good stuff, we've found if you don't do this, sometimes the spices just sit on the bottom.
May not make any difference flavor-wise, but, hey! Then you start stuffing in the meat. Add a little more water to cover the meat. I use a chopstick (metal might scratch the jar, weakening it) to poke about in there to get any air bubbles out. If you don't do that, as it boils off, you may end up with a jar of meat only 3/4ths full of juice and your meat will dry out, even though in a jar. After getting all the bubbles out, add more water to cover the meat if necessary. You should not fill further than the bottom of the neck of the jar.
Now is when the bowl of vinegar comes in. No matter how careful you are, when working with meat, you WILL get some meat specks and/or grease on the rim of the jar. A clean rag will remove specks but not grease. Grease or specks on the rim WILL keep your jar from sealing. So we dip a clean paper towel into vinegar and use that to wipe the top of the jar and make sure it's clean. Then add the hot lid and ring.
and put the jar into the pressure canner.
Repeat until you are out of meat or out of room. Each jar holds about 1.5 lbs of pork in this canning. My pressure canner holds 7 quarts, so have 10.5 lbs in each load.
Put the lid on the pressure canner and turn up the heat until it's blowing steam out of the vent hole. Let it blow steam for about 10 minutes and then put on the weight and let the pressure build.
The Ball Blue Book says that pork needs 10 lbs of pressure, so I try to keep it somewhere between 10 and 13 lbs. It takes 90 minutes for quarts of meat at pressure. Once you get the pressure to 10 lbs, set your timer for 90 minutes.
When the 90 minutes were up, we turned the heat off and let the pressure fall naturally. It takes about 2.5 hours for each load to get up to pressure and then back down. Plan your time accordingly!
Once the pressure is back to normal, remove the jars from the canner, put them on a rack or on towels to cool down. They will probably be greasy, it boils out some of the juice. Once cool, I wash them to clean off the grease and remove the rings. WRITE THE DATE ON THE LID. Don't think you'll remember it, you won't!
Then store them! I cleaned a spot in my meat shelves for the 14 quarts we did up. We saved about 7 lbs of that 28 for pork chops.
How do I use it? Last week I opened one of the country sparerib jars we'd put up and made a butter and flour rue then dumped the juice into the skillet and made gravy. Then dumped in the meat to heat in the gravy. Boiled up some egg noodles and heated some of the green beans we'd put up also. Had pork in gravy on noodles with some of the best green beans you can get!
Always remember when canning, The Ball Blue Book is your friend!
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