Does anyone here regularly jar and can their food? Preserving is something I'm looking to get into, a great and cheap method of feeding a family. Whats a good time to start and any advice for beginners. Thanks everyone : ) praise his name!
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Preserving Food
- Thread starter Obedient Christian girl
- Start date
My wife and I are about to start doing this soon! We've mostly watched lots of videos, tips and tricks on the internet but unfortunately it seems that canning things are kinda low right now..we were able to get a pack of 12 jars and a book but that's about it. My guess is people are still in the dumb panic buying mode. We're also starting our own garden here shortly, as to avoid all the nasty preservatives and pesticides the food companies use. I also would love to hear anyone's advice on this subject.
I think you can star threads of you want to find out what happens. Happy pickling and jarring! : )
We have jars in abundance. Usually we can apples and peaches, pears and cucumber pickles....and jalapenos too.
Fruit juice is easy. Meat and some things need a pressure cooker....but it is sure handy later.
Drying is easy out here in Arid-zona. Jerky or fruit are much loved later.
Important to look at what you will actually use....and work into it.
Fruit juice is easy. Meat and some things need a pressure cooker....but it is sure handy later.
Drying is easy out here in Arid-zona. Jerky or fruit are much loved later.
Important to look at what you will actually use....and work into it.
Good to start small, build up to canning for a winter homestead!Canning small amounts, a single quart, is easy/simple with a instapot.
Or so I am told.
Jars will be in more abundance in a month or two.
Or so I have been also told.
I've never heard of preserving jalapeños, neat
The wife and I made jerky in her dehydrator one time and it was pretty good. I didn't even know canning meat was possible until a few weeks ago...does it still taste okay..?
It's ok for canned. I canned a bunch of chicken one year and it made sandwiches and chow main just fine. Also good in soups. Very convenient for quick fixes as it's already cooked and not frozen.
As seen in Texas recently, no electricity is a very real possibility..not something I would imagine 2021 would bring
Yes, I was thinking about that.
This time around, lack of electricity didn’t endanger the frozen food all that much, though.
No time like the present.
3) All your freezers are full and there are still animals to butcher.
3) All your freezers are full and there are still animals to butcher.
How many quart jars does it take to can a steer?
Inquiring minds want to know.
We could probably can a few steers without running out of jars, but I have no idea how many it would take.
I used to put a chicken in a quart jar.
You could probably get 1 1/2 + pounds of beef in a quart. How many jars would vary with the size of steer.
I used to put a chicken in a quart jar.
You could probably get 1 1/2 + pounds of beef in a quart. How many jars would vary with the size of steer.
How long would canned meat keep?
Would you can beef and mutton as mincemeat? Or small cuts?
Actually, I have too many questions, I'm about to ask for a full description of the whole process. Can you share a link to a description of how to do this @Joleneakamama?
Would you can beef and mutton as mincemeat? Or small cuts?
Actually, I have too many questions, I'm about to ask for a full description of the whole process. Can you share a link to a description of how to do this @Joleneakamama?
I don't have links. It was 1/2 tsp of salt per quart put into the jar with the raw chicken. Then you use a pressure cooker at the right poundage for your elevation and pressure cook the jars with looseish lids for 30 minutes. The lids seal as they cool and the meat keeps on the shelf.
I would probably do beef in stew sized chunks. It would make many meals in a hurry. For now we rely on freezers, and my guys have been learning to repair and service those. Given the impossibility of having canned meat not well done (medium and juicy is preferred here) I'd rather work on solar for the freezers.
@Joleneakamama, we are very familiar with running freezers off solar power.
If you set the temperature to the lowest it will go, and have the freezers in a cool location (outside air: garage, porch etc), you can then simply put a power timer on them that turns them off in the evening and back on once the sun comes up. That way they are rarely drawing any electricity from the batteries, and basically serve as their own battery, being powered directly by the sun (plus a small amount of battery draw on cloudy days). Any freezer will easily go for 12 hours overnight with the power off. The batteries are the most expensive part of the system, this lets you get away with a smaller battery bank (but you still need a battery bank).
Whenever you're putting in a fresh load of meat, remove the timer and let them have continuous power until the meat is frozen, watching the batteries and using a generator as required. Once frozen put the timer back on.
Buy brand new freezers, the most power-efficient you can find for your budget. This is way cheaper than buying enough solar panels and batteries to run old, less efficient freezers. When we upgraded our fridge & freezer to larger brand new ones, we managed to roughly double our total fridge & freezer space, while roughly halving our power consumption for refrigeration, ie we were now using about 1/4 the electricity per cubic foot of fridge + freezer space. And that was buying a really cheap no-brand freezer that happened to have really good efficiency, and a Haier fridge. So not top-brand equipment, simply the most efficient we could afford at the time.
Use the old freezers as storage cupboards for nonperishable food, animal feeds or whatever. Or sell them to help pay for the new ones. Seriously don't be tempted to save money by keeping using old equipment, you won't actually save money.
However, our cheap energy efficient freezer can be very slow to actually freeze bulk food - I think the compressor has been undersized to save power and minimise manufacturing cost. This is ideal for solar power - it minimises the peak power draw when the compressor is starting and running, so minimises the inverter size you need, the smaller compressor just runs for longer. But it means it doesn't have the capacity to shift a lot of heat in a short time. So it may be worth keeping one older, but powerful freezer, to use occasionally to quickly freeze bulk loads of food while running from mains or generator power, before transferring to the efficient freezers for long-term storage.
If you set the temperature to the lowest it will go, and have the freezers in a cool location (outside air: garage, porch etc), you can then simply put a power timer on them that turns them off in the evening and back on once the sun comes up. That way they are rarely drawing any electricity from the batteries, and basically serve as their own battery, being powered directly by the sun (plus a small amount of battery draw on cloudy days). Any freezer will easily go for 12 hours overnight with the power off. The batteries are the most expensive part of the system, this lets you get away with a smaller battery bank (but you still need a battery bank).
Whenever you're putting in a fresh load of meat, remove the timer and let them have continuous power until the meat is frozen, watching the batteries and using a generator as required. Once frozen put the timer back on.
Buy brand new freezers, the most power-efficient you can find for your budget. This is way cheaper than buying enough solar panels and batteries to run old, less efficient freezers. When we upgraded our fridge & freezer to larger brand new ones, we managed to roughly double our total fridge & freezer space, while roughly halving our power consumption for refrigeration, ie we were now using about 1/4 the electricity per cubic foot of fridge + freezer space. And that was buying a really cheap no-brand freezer that happened to have really good efficiency, and a Haier fridge. So not top-brand equipment, simply the most efficient we could afford at the time.
Use the old freezers as storage cupboards for nonperishable food, animal feeds or whatever. Or sell them to help pay for the new ones. Seriously don't be tempted to save money by keeping using old equipment, you won't actually save money.
However, our cheap energy efficient freezer can be very slow to actually freeze bulk food - I think the compressor has been undersized to save power and minimise manufacturing cost. This is ideal for solar power - it minimises the peak power draw when the compressor is starting and running, so minimises the inverter size you need, the smaller compressor just runs for longer. But it means it doesn't have the capacity to shift a lot of heat in a short time. So it may be worth keeping one older, but powerful freezer, to use occasionally to quickly freeze bulk loads of food while running from mains or generator power, before transferring to the efficient freezers for long-term storage.
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