canning/jarring whole meals

[demi]

just discovered this on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXSBCrw9dSg


i never realised you can jar meat at home! these guys are jarring whole meals; chilli, stews ect.

im definetly doing this at the end of the summer to free up space in the freezer.
when the pigs are slaughtered, for example, the meat can be jarred as well as frozen, smoked and salted to perserve it.
iv got limited space in the freezer, plus the freezer uses electricity, but iv got unlimited space for storing jars of food which doesnt use any energy in doing so!

i actually remember seeing a program about amish people who dont use electricity and the woman was showing her pantry and saying how she jar's everything.

need to invest in a pressure cooker/canner though to jar the meat. iv read you cant jar meat in just a water bath because of the risk of bacteria, it has to be pressre canned.

[Thomzo]

need to invest in a pressure cooker/canner though to jar the meat. iv read you cant jar meat in just a water bath because of the risk of bacteria, it has to be pressre canned.

Please do, botulism is extremely dangerous, often fatal, and thrives in canned meat that hasn't been properly treated.

Zoe

[Ellendra]

If you're looking for a pressure canner, look for one that doesn't require a rubber gasket. The gaskets on both of mine are giving out (they're 5 and 6 years old, respectively), and I haven't been able to find replacements that fit. The canners that don't require gaskets are a little more expensive, but I know someone who's been using one for 50 years and it still works as well as it did when she first bought it, so I've got one on my christmas list :)

[demi]

thanks for the tip, ill keep that in mind :)

iv been looking on t'internet and they're pretty pricey. wonder if its possible to make one?

also can you use normal jars, like jam jars? or do you have to buy those big jars with the funny lids that come apart?

[Big Al]

The cost of importing one from the USA is stopping mefrom this route of preserving. As mentioned please, please make sure of your practice as illness and even death is a very real possibility if not done properly.

For those who know maybe you can answer this related question. When I do jar preserving I fill the jars then put them in a (max) hot oven 250 deg C ish then take them out and leave to cool. The lids that have the dimple buttons in then get sucked back in so as to prove an air tight seal. Would this work for meat meals ( all cooked) like chilli, cooked mince, steak, chicken etc at the moment I've only tried james etc.

[demi]

iv used the method your describing for jam.

but i jar all my veg by cooking various combinations of chopped seasonal veg, in a tomato based sause, like a veggie stew. then fill up the jars, having first washed in hot soapy water, putting the lids on and puting them into a water bath ( big pot filled with water with a lid). then boil them for 20 minuets to sterilize.
my mother-in-law showed me how to do it, she jars everything with the water bath.
she makes whole fruit compots by just filling the jars with fresh fruit ( whole, washed, destoned ) topping up with water to cover the fruit and adding 4 big tablespoons of sugar. then its into the water bath and the fruit cook and the sugar turns to siryp.

we use big jam jars, with the pop lids your talking about. but i dont know if you can use them in a pressure cooker. the ones iv seen people using for a pressure cooker have lids that come apart, its got a disk top and a seperate ring and you put the ring on after they come out the cooker to seal the lids.
im assuming you can use normal jam jars, but part of me thinks theres possibly an issure with the pressure in the pressure cooker that means you have to use a special lid so the jars dont explode or somthing???

[The Riff-Raff Element]

You'd be alright with normal jars - glass has an extraordinary tensile strength and the sort of pressure you' d be talking about is pretty low in absolute terms. However, beware of homemade pressure vessels: these things need to be carefully made or you could be picking shrapnal out of the ceiling.

The trick with suprssing botulism is either to use a sufficiently high temperature of 121°C (which is what you get with a pressure canner, though not with a normal pressure cooker) or to make sure the stuff you're preserving is nicely acid, which is why tomato and fruit based stuff is easy to jar.

If you have an oven with good temperature control, an alternative is an oil bath ate 130°C.

[Ellendra]

For those who know maybe you can answer this related question. When I do jar preserving I fill the jars then put them in a (max) hot oven 250 deg C ish then take them out and leave to cool. The lids that have the dimple buttons in then get sucked back in so as to prove an air tight seal. Would this work for meat meals ( all cooked) like chilli, cooked mince, steak, chicken etc at the moment I've only tried james etc.

No, it would not work for meats or low-acid foods, sorry. Works great for dry foods, like nuts or dry pasta, although the jar manufacturers don't recommend oven canning at all, due to the risk of breakage.

If you made confit-in-a-jar you could probably make it work for meats, but that's kind of in the realm of "experimental canning".

There might be an autoclave design that could be used as a pressure canner. I know someone who does that. They work on the same principle.

[Ellendra]

Oh, and jam jars work. I reuse sauce jars and pickle jars and such all the time. As long as they're real glass, not plastic, and the 2-piece lids fit.