Canning Meat & Other Questions Answered

There have been questions asked in comments and some I’ve answered in comments and some I’ve answered but they were buried in other posts. I’ll try to answer them all here but remember . . I am no expert. Please refer to any of the USDA sites or the Ball canning books for more reliable info.

When canning meat, do I prefer pints or quarts?

Up until last year, I used pints for meat. Once the meat has been in the pressure canner for 1 hour and 15 minutes for pints or 1 hour and 30 minutes for quarts, it’s done and it’s tender. One pint is about enough for us for a meal with maybe enough leftovers for Vince to have a sandwich.

With jars having been hard to find, especially last year, I started canning in quarts. I can store one quart easier and in less space than I can store two pints. I can process 14 quarts in the canner or 19 pints so it’s more efficient to can quarts. I’m getting twice as much in a quart jar and only using one jar, one lid and one ring.

I plan my meals so if I’m going to be opening a quart of roast beef to make roast, and serve with rice and gravy, I’ll plan to take the extra roast, shred it, add seasonings and make burritos another day, or I’ll just plan roast beef sandwiches for a meal or roast beef hash with just roast and potatoes. Same with chicken – if I’m opening a quart to make sweet & sour chicken, I’ll make enough for one meal or I’ll make enough to have leftovers a second day. If I want something different, I’ll shred some of the chicken, use Frank’s hot sauce and sour cream and serve it over a salad or I’ll saute the chicken in butter, add herbs and spices and serve it over baked potatoes with sour cream, butter and bacon. I just have to plan ahead.

When canning ground beef, how packed do I fill the jars?

I can get almost exactly 2 pounds of browned, drained ground beef in a quart jar. It isn’t packed tight. I use the jar funnel and just spoon it in, but do not pack it tightly. I do not pack it at all. Once it gets to about 1-1/2″ from the top, I stop so I can add hot water, covering the meat but still leaving head space.

I only know that I put about 2 pounds in a jar because 40 pounds of ground beef filled 21 quart jars.

Why do I pour hot water over the beef to get rid of the fat?

I do it because I am technically allergic to beef but it’s actually the fat that causes my reaction. I trim all the visible fat away from my steak. When I cook roasts, I cook them the day before we’re going to eat them, leave them in the fridge overnight so the fat rises to the top and solidifies and can be removed. So long as I’m careful and eating burgers out (where good burgers tend to be a bit juicy and greasy), I don’t eat a burger out more than once a month and I take a Benadryl before eating, I’m usually ok. Also, I do not eat greasy meat – hamburger even after I’ve drained the fat away, more than once a week. I try to space it out so that if I have roast or steak today, I don’t have beef of any kind for at least three days. That has worked so far. I never know when it won’t work and if that happens, I’ll have to figure out another plan. I do keep an Epi-pen at home. I’m fairly confident I don’t need to carry it everywhere I go because I rarely eat beef out, except the occasional burger and so far, the Benadryl before eating has served me well.

Also, the USDA canning guide says to remove as much fat as possible from meat – chicken, pork, beef. When I can roast beef, I cut away as much fat as I can reasonably cut away.

You can see that even with my pouring boiling water over the beef, I still ended up with some fat in the jars. I feel that the fat in the jars is the weak link. Canned meats are good for 3 -5 years according to most sites. I feel like they’re good for longer but I have had jars that had a lot of fat in them and the fat tasted “off” after a few years. If I planned to use all this meat within the next year or so, and I wasn’t allergic to beef fat, I wouldn’t go to so much trouble.

But, someone asked about removing the fat on a canning group the other day. About half those responding swore they’ve never had a problem with leaving it and about half thought it went a bit rancid after a while. It may depend on the age of the cow, the amount of fat, the temp at which the food is stored. I have no idea so use your own judgment.

How long am I comfortable storing food?

Please do your own research!

I found a jar of canned mustard greens from 2011 a while back and they tasted perfectly fresh. I found a jar of taco soup from 2014 and it was fine.

From what I’ve read, if the food was safely canned, and the lid is still sealed, the food isn’t going to become unsafe. The quality may go down with time. My goal is to can enough to have for at least a year. Take the ground beef as an example. I started out canning it because I have too much in the freezer. Then the freezer went out and I canned more. I still have more in the freezer than I’ll use in a year. I’m comfortable keeping ground beef in jars for at least three years but I’m not comfortable with ground beef (any meat) in the freezer more than a year so if it means canning four years of ground beef just to get it out of the freezer, I’m good with that. Remember, I’m using ground beef in soups, in Sloppy Joe mixes, in spaghetti sauce, in stuffed pepper soup (which I’ll use as a casserole) – I’m not canning just plain ground beef, though some of it is.

How long do you boil food from a jar before serving?

The rule I’ve always gone by has been to boil for 10 minutes. The University of Utah Extension has the following info:

Because I am not perfect and rarely do anything perfectly, I will continue to boil for 10 minutes.

Why can’t you water bath can meat?

Some people do. Some people are sure it’s ok. Many say that in countries other than the U.S. water bath canning meat is the acceptable way. Many say “grandma did it this way for 60 years”. I’m not saying they’re wrong but I will never water bath can any low acid food. It just isn’t worth the risk.

Those folks who do it boil the jars, with water at least 2″ over the top of the jars, for about 4 hours. Why? Why not buy a pressure canner and do it for 90 minutes? In the long run, it has to be less expensive to cut the time in half with the cost of electricity or gas for the stove, having to stay there and watch it, and the heat that’s produced in the house when most things are canned during the heat of the summer.

Which brand of Pressure Canner is the best?

I never like this question because I now use the All American canner which is outrageously expensive these days. It was expensive when I bought it but I felt it was worth it. Now, I’m not sure I’d pay the price for those but . . they will last through generation after generation. There’s no gasket to ever replace. The lid screws down so there’s no way it’s going to blow off (not that I worry about that anyway). On a gas stove, when I get the canner to 11 pounds of pressure and see that it’s staying there, I’m comfortable walking away from it and checking back from time to time during the 90 minute cycle. It’s so dependable. I wouldn’t leave the house and go to town but I would go out and water the garden and come in to check on it every 20 minutes or so.

I mostly use the All American 930. That’s the big one you see on my stove most of the time. That had been my dream canner for so many years and I had a glass top stove. While some canners may work on glass top (check with your stove manufacturer), this canner is outrageously heavy when empty. Add water and 14 full quart jars and no . . that would be too much weight on a glass top. We moved into our house in Texas in November, 2011 and I ordered this canner in January, 2012. I paid less than $275 for it. Now, the least expensive I’ve seen it is right at $500 but it’s very hard to find. It’s back ordered even from the manufacturer.

The Presto 23 quart canner is $165 at Amazon. That shocked me. I started canning about 40 years ago but went through a divorce and didn’t get any of the canning equipment so when Vince and I got married, one of the first things I wanted to buy was a canner. Vince thought it was a crazy idea and was sure I would kill us all – either from an exploding canner or some food borne disease. After several months of debating whether we needed a canner, we had a 25% off coupon for one item at Rural King and we bought the Presto 23 quart canner which, as I recall, was about $40 with the discount. I used that canner exclusively from about 1997 til I got the All American in 2012 and I’m confident in saying I canned thousands of loads in it. It is not a bad canner.

If you find a good used All American or Presto, at a decent price, I would get it. Look for dents and make sure the lid matches the canner and the lid fits tightly. You can buy parts. The All American canners do not have gaskets but gaskets for the Presto canners are easy to find and fairly inexpensive. Depending on the age, and not necessarily the use, I would replace the pressure gauge on any used canner and the overpressure plug, especially if it is an older model. Mine are 10 years old now and I’ve ordered those parts for them.

One last thing I’d like to share. About a month ago, I read that the USDA suggestions had changed concerning refreezing meat that has been thawed.

Food may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40 °F or below. You will have to evaluate each item separately. If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, check each package of food to determine the safety. Remember you can’t rely on appearance or odor. Never taste food to determine its safety!

Food may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40 °F or below. You will have to evaluate each item separately. If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, check each package of food to determine the safety. Remember you can’t rely on appearance or odor. Never taste food to determine its safety!

Be sure to discard any food items in either the freezer or the refrigerator that you won’t be cooking and have come into contact with raw meat juices. Partial thawing and refreezing may reduce the quality of some food, but the food will remain safe to eat.

USDA

I was so glad I had seen that because some of the meat in our freezer was partially thawed. Nothing except one package of ground beef on the door was totally defrosted so that’s the only thing I didn’t keep. Everything else was still at least partially frozen.

Again, use your own judgment!

If you have other questions, let me know in the comments.