The following describes my approach at pressure canning meat and dairy products, with some comments on fruit, vegetables, and other preservation methods
Pressure canning cookbooks, like Ball’s Blue Book, include recipes for making and canning meat broths, but, in my experience, most do not for meat itself. Similarly, they lack recipes for canning most dairy items.
However, families have canned both for generations. Below, I share my positive experience of canning meats, cheese, and butter, for shelf-stable pantry items, based on the advice of friends whose families have done so for decades, and from my own experiences over many years in Alaska. However, readers should do their own research and tests for safe food canning, and storage, for their storage temperatures.
Scenario 1: Imagine that you have a freezer and refrigerator full of food when the power fails for an extended time. How much did you spend to acquire all that food? How can you preserve it for an extended time? If you have a propane stove, you can pressure can everything.
Scenario 2: In our case, one year, we had two chest freezers full of food to last us from October to May at our fly-in only, off-grid home in Alaska. However, we decided halfway through the winter that we needed to leave to see family far away, and would not be able to return until after our lake broke, in mid-to-late May.
Since we rely on wind and solar power, which do not offer consistent energy, we supplement with a 2000 watt generator, when we are home. But an extended period away without consistent electricity is problematic for a freezer! Surely, everything would thaw and go bad before we could fly home.
What to do? I spent about seven days pressure canning (or other means of preservation, see below) everything in there: meat, cheese, butter, fruit, and vegetables.
General approach to pressure canning meat and dairy:
Acidic foods (like tomatoes, berries, and citrus) are the safest to pressure can in the shortest amount of time, some recipes require as little as 15 minutes. Meats, butter, and many cheeses, especially soft ones, are non-acidic. So, they require a LONG time of pressure cooking to be safe – usually 75 minutes for quart jars. Even though some cheeses, particularly aged ones have acidity to help with coagulation, I treat all cheeses the same, with a long pressure canning time.
Do your research and make your own decisions. [JWR Adds: Err on the side of caution. If your references are vague or they do not have directions for a particular food item, then opt for longer processing time!]
Meats
Bacon: I roll out a long piece of parchment paper. Then, I compare the length of bacon to the height of a quart mason jar. I generally cut the bacon pieces in half, and lay them side by side along the middle of the length of parchment paper, then fold the top and bottom over the bacon. I roll this up into a tight cylinder to slide into a quart mason jar. I find that 15 pieces of bacon is generally the right number to fit snugly in one jar.
Check your sources for recipes and timing. In my experience, cooking bacon does not require any liquid in the jar, perhaps because there is so much fat. But, because there is no liquid, you really want to stuff the jar full so that it does not float.
Cook for the appropriate time.
Result:
When you peel back the parchment paper, you will see that the bacon has shrunk and shed a lot of its fat into separate, white globules (which you can scrape off and use in other recipes). The bacon is cooked but flabby, so when you cook it for breakfast, it will reheat very quickly and be thinner, but just as tasty. It reminds me of some microwaved bacon that my parents bought.
Chicken, pork, and beef:
To cook any of these, it is important to cut the meat into similar-size chunks, so they will cook uniformly, and to fill the jar (leaving appropriate airspace) with broth and any flavorings you choose. Essentially, you are boiling it. Pressure can for the duration your research indicates. In my experience, chicken and pork loin turn out dry, so any future recipes involve saturation in a sauce. Pork rib meat and pork shoulder/butt are wonderfully tender. Hamburger is easy and reliable. Fat in any of these meats will rise to the top, providing a second layer of defense against air, just as duck confit has done for centuries. In the winter, I scoop this fat off to give to the dog to help his coat, or I use it to make gravy.
Dairy
Butter:
Melt the butter and then pour into mason jars with appropriate air space. ( I recommend the small 1 cup jars for easy spooning or knifing).
Cook for the allotted time according to your source. When you remove the cans and they cool, it is recommended that you turn the jars upside down and then right side up a few times to blend the oil and milk solids. Otherwise, they can separate. If they do, you can divide the two and you have ghee, which is shelf stable. Personally, I flip the jars twice in the first 24 hours, after they are cool enough to touch and all my butter has blended just fine.
You can also flavor your canned butter with herbs, such as chives. Delicious!
Cheese:
The simplest cheeses to process are those closest to milk. These include ricotta, mozzarella, goat cheese, and cream cheese. These are also the easiest to melt and pressure can. As with butter, I recommend using short, one cup mason jars and cooking them for as long as a meat broth. I have not tried to pressure can dried cheeses, like parmesan or medium dry cheeses like cheddar or blue cheese. You are on your own, there!
The texture of canned cheeses will be denser and the color browner, but when reconstituted, as in a sauce or other recipe, the result is fine.
Troubleshooting
Every year, I have a few cans that did not “cure” that is, the lids did not suck in to form a concave seal. This is usually because I used an old lid that had a tiny dent in it that I did not notice. The easy way to tell if a seal formed is to lift the jar after 24 hours by the disk (without the surrounding ring) and see if the metal seal holds. If yes, I put it in the pantry. If no, I use it right away or redo right away. I have used plastic, reusable lids but prefer metal ones for canning, and plastic ones for any vinegar or salt based preservation methods (since both pit metal lids).
The assumption of most pressure canning cookbooks and bloggers is that the jars will be stored indoors. However, in a “grid down” situation, or living as we do, off-grid altogether in Alaska, we store our hundreds of mason jars in unheated food sheds. Temperatures are below freezing for at least 7 months. In my first few years, I lost 12, then 10 then fewer jars to cracking each winter. Two changes have diminished my losses to one or two jars per year. First, I increased my airspace calculation at the top of the jar for liquids, like broth and salsa which would expand 10% when they froze. Second, I started storing the cans with the lids ON but the rings OFF, so that if the liquid inside expanded, it might raise the lid rather than crack the jar. This works… sometimes. Of course, any time a seal is compromised during storage, that food should be discarded.
Every once in a while, maybe every other year, I open a jar that smells bad. No brainer: dump it. I don’t know what went wrong, but I don’t eat it. The most common culprits were low acid foods, like meat and cheese.
If you are new to pressure canning, I recommend that you start with acidic foods, like tomatoes and berries, from recipes by well-known sources like Ball’s, to build confidence with the safest foods. High acidity is your friend for safe, long-term food storage.
Vegetables
It is easy to find lots of recipes and directions for pressure canning vegetables. I have not listed them here, because, in general, I find the texture to be similarly disappointing to canned and frozen vegetables. However, I make many, many jars of vegetable broth every year from bits and pieces cut off while cooking dinner. Tomato sauces and salsas are very successful. I have also been pleased with the results of sweet/sour relishes (I favor zucchini, corn, and beautiful beet relishes). I have also pressure canned onions. A favorite variation is carmelized onions, which basically involves cooking them in butter first.
Alternatively, one can pickle or ferment vegetables, like sauerkraut. I like fermented cabbage. I am not a fan of fermented tomatoes or carrots, but you may be.
To preserve texture better, my preference for long term storage of vegetables is to marinate them in an oil/vinegar solution, some raw, and some blanched. Place a weight on top of the veggies to suppress them below the marinade so no mold will form. Look for recipes.
Fruits
Here in a boreal forest, we live in berry heaven. I raise and forage 6 varieties and enjoy many others for beauty that I do not eat (but that the birds love). Berries that have unpalatable seeds, I render through a food press first, to juice. If I turn the juice into jelly, I pressure can it. If I turn it into wine, I do not have to do so, but I may so I can make wine in the winter when I am less busy. Haskaps (honeyberries) have so much natural pectin that they make a gorgeous and delicious jelly with just fruit and sugar. This is the easiest jelly I make each year.
Our apples are small and rather mealy, so I quarter and gut them and then freeze them for future additions to cakes, muffins, oatmeal, and cabbage. I do not can them at this point because these trees grow slowly here and the size of the harvest is depleted in just a few winter months.
Citrus freezes well. I have pressure canned oranges, but the process made the fruit rubbery and tough. Are you familiar with the term, “preserved lemons or limes?” This is a method very similar to making sauerkraut (and a long standing favorite in the Middle East and Hawaii). In mason jars, I layer slim slices of citrus with hefty spoons full of salt. The salt creates a brine which preserves the fruit for savory dishes and sauces. I have not done so with oranges yet (because I can’t think of many savory dishes with salted oranges) but salting is a long standing method of preserving fish, fruit, and anything else.
I encourage readers who experience surfeits of citrus or other harvests to experiment with various forms of preservation.
Canning Supplies
You can buy larger and smaller canners to fit on top of your stove or woodstove, but with a woodstove, consistent temperature is important. I have two units, one that holds 7 quarts and a second that holds 5 quarts. These are pricey, but long-lasting and well-built. I think the big one cost about $350. I do suggest buying extras of the small pieces. I lost an L bracket at some point. Since these pots are big and heavy, storage space is an issue. Plus, you need a place to store filled and empty mason jars, lids, and rings. You are unlikely to keep the big pressure canner on the stove year-round, but will use it all day long, several days in a row during harvest season or when preserving big batches of foods. For example, mid-winter, I make many pints of barbecue sauce and various broths. Other people might use theirs for several days when they buy a lot of something from the supermarket offered at a steep discount.
Maybe one way to evaluate the value of a pressure canner is to calculate its monetary utility. If you live on the road system with municipal electricity, how much is the food in a full freezer and refrigerator worth? Is a pressure canner a form of insurance if it costs less than the expense of that food lost to an extended power outage?
Power outages seem to be increasing in frequency in the US, perhaps due to aging infrastructure and growing power demands. When I lived in Houston, Texas we experienced power outages due to hurricanes and ice storms every few years. Neighbors would pull out barbeques to cook all their food and share with others… until it ran out. I never heard anyone mention having a pressure cooker. Perhaps someone who owns one could be the hero of the neighborhood.
Obviously, pressure canners (and a supply of mason jars) are “no-brainer” purchases for any “bug out” location or long-stay hunting cabin where you might process game and lack refrigeration.
For us, living at a fly-in only location in Alaska, relying on solar and wind power with a small backup generator, my pressure canners have been invaluable. I store several seasons’ worth of berry juices and berry products, homemade condiments like BBQ sauces, relishes, salsas, meat, and dairy. I date-mark each jar.
Best wishes to readers for long-term, shelf-stable food storage – whatever works for your location’s storage space and temperatures, as well as power.
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