Old school canning

[grubworm]

i'm 55 and i remember my mother and grandmother canning foods back in the early 70s. as a kid, i just remember that it looked complicated and appeared to be more work than it was worth...

well, that technique has been revisited as i've been looking at ways to prep and store food for longer terms than fridge/freezer. i totally get there might be an apocalypse looming right around the corner and if the world is going to burn, then i'd certainly want to have some SPAM and other comfort foods at the ready. if nothing else, living in south louisiana (hurricane alley) has taught me that disaster can strike at any time and its prudent to have some food stores that do not require refridgeration. that mindset easily transfers over into having food for camping.

i've been vacuum sealing for years and even messing some with dehydrating and storing in vacuum sealed mason jars. that works great for dried foods, but i wanted to find something for meats other than buying canned. (except SPAM...canned SPAM is perfection) anyway, canned chicken and canned tuna are pretty good, but getting expensive and sometimes hard to find. i saw a youtube video on canning recently and it interested me enough to buy a pressure cooker and give it a try.

long story made short...it was quick and easy and AWESOME results! i got a 10# pork loin and cut it into cubes and filled 5 quart sized mason jars with the meat. the wife later did a batch and added BBQ seasoning. i put 3 quarts of water in the pot and added my jars and cranked up the heat until boiling...then when the water is boiling, set the weight on the vent and adjust the heat to keep 11 pounds of steam pressure in the pot for 90 minutes. let the jars cool and they seal as they cool.

we did a batch of chicken and just added some broth to the jar and then tried it the next day. it was very good...fully cooked and the texture was perfect for making chicken salad.
so...for some folk out there, canning might be something of interest for you. i know a lot of folk go out ripping and tearing and taking glass mason jars out on trips probably wouldnt make sense to you...but for folk like us who have room and dont bounce around too much, taking jarred meats is pretty nice. i'm sure the shelf life is shortened a good bit being exposed to heat versus being stored in a cool pantry in the house, but even a month or so is plenty long for camping trips.

i just started this a week ago and im totally digging it. tons of recipes for canned baked beans, soups, etc. just wanted to throw this out there and maybe some will find it useful. there are a lot of youtube vids on this, so you can get to be a canning pro in no time

 

[John and Mandi]

Beef stew seems to be a fairly popular canning option. We have a canner but haven't used it yet but we're thinking of giving the beef stew a try. Since we move every 2-3 months having a stock of jars doesn't seem to be the best plan but we may start with one case.

If you have a fridge/freezer and solar on your rig you can run it as a freezer and rotate stock between a good cooler each day to keep the items longer. We have done that with an old school thick styrofoam cooler (one used to ship meat) wrapped in blankets. We can keep ~60 days of meat with that method and our Engel is only a 40qt, as long as we get either enough sun or have the diesel to charge our battery bank with the van. If we were more stationary a small Honda/Yamaha/whatever brand could be used to keep our bank topped off and we'd probably have an entire shelving unit of canned food. I really would like a dehydrator, a high grade one, but we don't have the space in the van to move one around at this time. I saw a video where an entire course of breakfast was cooked (scrambled eggs, sausage, onions, potatoes), dehydrated on separate trays overnight, then combined for storage. That definitely peaked my interest.

We started carrying leftovers in jars when we went on long day hikes and/or climbing sessions in cold climates...a trick we learned from friends. Eating right out of the jar is convenient and having 'real' food is fantastic. We're sure that there are rougher tracks but we managed to carry quite a bit of glass and never had one break during transit. Granted, we are in a 1 ton and are very heavy so we crawl even when others don't need to. We also bought a pack of cheap socks to put each jar in to provide cushioning but we have no way of knowing if that actually works.

 

[OTH Overland]

We are looking into purchasing a freeze drying machine to allow us to create our own 'mountain house' meals, they are expensive with the cheapest at $2,500, but at the price of freeze dried meals these days and they are often hard to get it may be a good thing to have. We use a few meals a month on our adventures, and we have a lot of them packed away in totes as part of our contingency plan... Much lighter than canned items, can last for 25 years and less prone to breakage in the earthquake prone NW.

 

[Ragman]

We have canned a lot over the years and the only thing I have not had great success with was dried beans. Looks like you have the same type of Presto pressure canner that we have and I would recommend the Ball canning books for recipes as they seem very well written. I have a fishing trip booked for Alaska next June and want to give smoked salmon a try when I get back, so fingers crossed the King's are hungry!

 

[MMc]

I have been preserving food for years, Pickles, Jams, Tuna, Jerky, Beef, Smoking fish and meats,I love doing it. The jars are great and hold up so very well. I store them in the cases they come in with a bit of clear wrap around them.

 

[grubworm]

We are looking into purchasing a freeze drying machine to allow us to create our own 'mountain house' meals, they are expensive with the cheapest at $2,500, but at the price of freeze dried meals these days and they are often hard to get it may be a good thing to have. We use a few meals a month on our adventures, and we have a lot of them packed away in totes as part of our contingency plan... Much lighter than canned items, can last for 25 years and less prone to breakage in the earthquake prone NW.

yeah...i wanted to get into that myself and Harvest Right seems to be the only player for non-commercial units. i came close to pulling the trigger, but the dry times are pretty long. im sure all things considered, its a good investment and i might end up getting one down the road. south louisiana is so humid that food dehydrators just dont quite cut it. i bought several different dehydrators and they all seemed to do well up to a point, and then no matter what, it just wouldnt dehydrate past a certain point, so the freeze dryer seems to be the best option for what im wanting.

 

[Ragman]

i definitely thought of you and some of your recipes when i was doing the pork loin. i was watching your youtube channel and you had just posted the latest:
Dutch Oven Chile Verde Chilaquiles With Spam

have you done baked beans in the canner? that is something i want to try next.
yeah, when i lived in washington state, we did smoked salmon and it was phenominal. we also took different cheeses and smoked them. smoked swiss is pretty good

I have never done baked beans in the canner, chili is probably the closest thing and it worked great unless you get some boil over and the lid won't seal, not sure if I got the head space wrong or just got too hot somehow. We always smoke cheese and give it to the family for Christmas with our favorites being cheddar, Jarlsberg (Swiss-like but they sell big blocks at Costco) and Gouda. I am a big fan of smoked salmon and want to try to can some.

One thing I did do for my canner since they now only come with the overpressure weight for the pipe and you have to rely on the dial is to get one of these old style jigglers which you can set for different pressures-makes it soooo much easier to manage the pressure/heat. (I read somewhere that Presto sold the patent or something which is why they no longer come standard with them).

Pressure Regulator

The pressure regulator controls the amount of pressure that can be built up in the canner. It...

www.gopresto.com

I know Amazon carries them as well.

 

[grubworm]

two weeks after canning our first jar, the pantry is filling up...
the bottom three shelves are pork and chicken.
the top is potatoes. went camping last weekend and took some of the canned food and it was really good. the potatoes are great for breakfast.
also did some baked beans that are just as good as Bush beans and 1/4 the cost...plus i can make them exactly as i like

 

[OTH Overland]

two weeks after canning our first jar, the pantry is filling up...
the bottom three shelves are pork and chicken.
the top is potatoes. went camping last weekend and took some of the canned food and it was really good. the potatoes are great for breakfast.
also did some baked beans that are just as good as Bush beans and 1/4 the cost...plus i can make them exactly as i like

View attachment 243488

Impressive organization skills! I like that the shelves have a lip to prevent jars from being accidentally discharged

 

[grubworm]

Impressive organization skills! I like that the shelves have a lip to prevent jars from being accidentally discharged

thanks
that wall was dead space, so making a shelving unit there turned out really well. i think we get close to 2 pounds or so in a jar and the whole unit will hold around 130-135 quart jars...so its a few hundred pounds of goods. i took 2x6s and cut off 3/4" to narrow the shelf and then used that 3/4" strip as the lip.
the chicken is pretty awesome...makes great chicken salad and really good chicken burritos. already cooked, so just heat and good to go...
wish i got into this years ago

 

[Marty_d3f81b]

We have canned a lot over the years and the only thing I have not had great success with was dried beans. Looks like you have the same type of Presto pressure canner that we have and I would recommend the Ball canning books for recipes as they seem very well written. I have a fishing trip booked for Alaska next June and want to give smoked salmon a try when I get back, so fingers crossed the King's are hungry!

My daughter and I caned Tuna that one of my coworkers gave me. It turned out awesome. A little olive oil and dill made a big difference.