# First Time Canning Meat!



## dnsnthegrdn (Jun 29, 2011)

Canning meat has always intimidated me, but I decided to go for it. Not exactly self sufficient but I bought a bunch of chicken breasts and some pint jars. Now you have to understand that I HATE touching raw meat. My husband is the meat man and when he's working the night shift I usually cook vegetarian meals. Anyway. I sucked it up and cut up more chicken than I've ever cut up in my whole life. The process was surprisingly simple and every jar sealed up fine. I don't what I was expecting. 

I figured up the cost per jar and it was $1.78 per jar. Cheaper than buying canned chicken at the store. This will be a good chore to do during the winter months when there aren't any veggies to can and the stove can help heat up the house. I'm excited to have a new way to store meat. :congrat:


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## beanpicker (May 25, 2011)

Go for it girl, dnsnthegrdn, keep at it , the resurets are so rewarding.. won't be long till you'll have the pantry full of chicken, roast beef, pork , etc, . I even canned my own chili an making a sky line chili, ( sorry girls no instrutions, ) Once we start there is no end..


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## MouldyJoe (Jul 5, 2011)

The first time I did it we had a bunch of old freezer burnt Venison. I just trimmed off the hard brown spots and cut it to stew meat size. The pressure cooker did wonders. Even my daughters roommates at college kept asking them how they made "shredded beef" so easily.


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## dnsnthegrdn (Jun 29, 2011)

Thanks! I told my grandmother and she said that she remembered when she was a girl her aunt would can squirrel and chicken. That got me thinking. My husband hunts rabbits and squirrels. Plus my father in law owns a shooting preserve so we sometimes get pheasants from hunters who don't want the meat. There will be lots of stuff I can can now that I've gotten over my fear of canning meat. Plus my husband and I make some killer venison chilli. I'll be able to can it instead of freezing it now. I'm excited.


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

You did pressure can it right?(The tiny little canning nazi in my head just had to ask)


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## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

well tonight I had my first disaster with canning meat......good grief, so much work and time gone...pfffft. The chicken I had cooked in the pressure cooker the other night and the broth that I had strained and saved....well, I put it in 5 pint jars, added the broth and started canning...........75 minutes...when they cooled I took the lid off and 4 of the jars were broked...bottoms broken out, 2-3 of the jars on their side. So maybe what I was suppose to do was fill more jars with water and fill up the canner so the jars wouldn't fall over? Don't know.......would sure like to know what happened.........anyway, gonna throw it all out except the 1 pint. Most expensive chicken I've ever eaten........


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## beanpicker (May 25, 2011)

neldarez, are you sure the canner had a bottem rack in it. sound like the problem to me. And are you sure your using a canner made to can in or it it a smaller pressure cooker design to simply cook in ? Some one ask me years ago if they could can in a pressure cooker that is realy designed to cook in , I don't know how they would relugate the pounds??


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## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

yes maam the rack was in the bottom and this is my pressure canner....it has regulator and it is what I can in...I just wondered if they fell over cuz there weren't any other jars to hold them up? Really frustrating .... this is the first time I had canned cooked chicken with broth added, all other chicken I had done was raw pack.............:dunno:


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

I've only canned with a full load, but your idea of adding empty (well, water-filled) jars just to fill out the load sounds like it would work... :scratch

I keep waiting for the broken jar thing to happen when I open the lid. Haven't had one yet - figure I'm due, lol.


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## dnsnthegrdn (Jun 29, 2011)

Emerald - Yes, I'm pretty sure I did it just fine. I have three different canning books and I compared all three. They all said the same thing. Cook till medium done, hot pack, and process at 10 pounds for 75 minutes. I actually went outside to smoke a cig. and the chicken got cooked all the way, so that is the only difference. I think I would cook it all the way anyways. 

I've done plenty of veggies, but this was my first time canning meat. I did my research.


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