On The Importance of Multiple Food Saving Methods – Freezer Setback
Never rely just on freezers for your meat storage. I’ve never liked the idea of canning meat, but I think we’ll be giving it a try soon. If we can manage to dry, freeze and can a little bit of everything we’ll have our bases covered when stuff like this happens…
I found out our upright freezer has been off for an entire week when I went to restock the in-house freezer this morning. We lost about 75% of the deer I killed and processed the week before last, along with the remainder of our half-beef from last year, which included several packages of T-bones and about a dozen packages of ground beef.
Also lost were a dozen bags of fruit, a dozen bags of frozen veggies, and some bagels. We were hoping to salvage some of the beef by having stew for lunch and dinner the next few days, but it smelled quite “off” when we opened the packages so we didn’t chance it.
The plan for today was to finish the rabbit hutch (post coming soon) and then go to a potluck at a friend’s house. It looks like we’ll be cleaning out the freezer and making a trip to the dumpsters instead.
After standing in the cold, wet mud covered in blood for an hour while processing the deer it pains me to think how much of her, and that work, was wasted. But life is too short to get bent out of shape about the things you can’t change, so we’re going to learn from this and adjust our future food-saving strategy accordingly.
Have you ever canned meat? How did it turn out?
E.
Related posts:
- Three Chickens in the Freezer
- Canning 101 PDF Guide: How to Get Started Canning – Pressure and Water Bath Methods
- Solar Food Dehydrator – I Want One – I’ll Make One
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Canned pork tenderloin is amazing! I’ve never canned it myself, but have eaten home canned. I assume that any sort of canned meat you can buy at the store you can home can i.e. chicken. Ball Blue Book has a pretty good section on canning meat.
Ugh, tough loss. I just put one of my remote thermometers in the fridge part of our basement freezer to keep tabs on it. Of course, that depends on my remembering to check it… something with an alarm system would be better. I bet there are freezers out there that text you when the temp is getting too high
I’ve canned chicken and turkey, and I also can a bunch of soup and chili with both kinds of meat. Turns out perfectly fine! Just make sure you bring it to a boil in whatever you’re making for at least 10 minutes. This is supposed to kill any left over bacteria that somehow might make it through the canning process. And this makes for a nice, easy dinner when I forgot to take something out of the freezer. Chicken in gravy, over rice or homemade biscuits. Yum!
Sorry for your loss! A good number of folks around here can venison.
http://eatingfloyd.blogspot.com/2011/11/preserving-floyd-canning-venison.html
No one cans meat like Mennonites do! Did you know that MCC even has a mobile meat canner, that travels the US and Canada to can meat for people who would not otherwise afford it? It is shipped around the world. A friend of mine cans venison using the oven; if you want specific directions just let me know.
I feel for you, as we had the same thing happen during hurricane Irene.We tried to save the contents of the freezer by transporting it all to my mother in laws house.We thought we had saved it,but it turned out we lost our entire summer harvest . We learned a very hard lesson ..never put all your “eggs” in one basket. Next year we will be canning ,freezing and drying a little of everything so we are not left empty handed by one storm.
I’ve have never canned meat either,so I can not pass on any advise on that subject. But I think we’ll give canning meat a try in our household ,just to see what the outcome is.
Thanks Carolyn. I don’t think I’ll be canning meat in the oven. Sounds pretty dangerous. We have a pressure canner so I’ll be making use of it. Our neighbors are Mennonites. I need to go introduce myself!
Will thanks for the link fellow Floydian!
Robin, nice blog! It sounds like you’ve come full circle: Rural homestead, the burgs, the big city, back to rural homestead. We will definitely be canning some chicken next year if we raise broilers. I wonder if it would be good to do a pre-mix like with some rice and veggies or do you can the meat separately and add in the ingredients as you cook it the second time?
De a remote thermometer sounds like a good idea if you remember to check it. Maybe putting the reading on the front door so you see on your way out every day? The texting freezers sound a little high-tech for us.
Beth I don’t think we wait for the tenderloin to freeze OR can. We eat that part up right away! Mmmm…..
OMG, this sounds way too familiar. Last week, when preparing for my first artisan fair, I unplugged our deep freeze in the garage to get some supplies from behind my table saw. Got so wrapped up in making my signage that I forgot to plug it back in. My husband found it over a week later, tons of meat, bread, etc. was wasted. I felt sick about it for a few days, but, like you, decided there was nothing I could do at that point, so we went back to Costco, stocked up, and chalked it up to a learning experience. Maybe if we were already comfortably on our farm in MN, it wouldn’t have been such a loss as the cold could have kept it even without the freezer…but not here in mild Las Vegas.
Ouch!
The chat group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canning2/
has a lot of information, and one of the latest topics has been about home canning of various meats.
Hope that helps
Elizabeth
I have canned beef and chicken. The beef was the best tasting stuff I have had in a long time. The chicken was good, but I just preferred the beef. The only problem I ran into was finding or incorporating recipes for meat that was already cooked and ready to add. I don’t have very many of those recipes. Silly me! I’m thinking I might need to rethink this again. Thank you for reminding me of this possibility.
Hi, I just wanted to say how sorry I was that you lost so much food, I know it’s always a huge blow when that happens. I have canned meat and have always been verry happy with it. I usually buy extra turkeys after the holidays and can them up for soups and stews. I also buy hamberger in bulk and can that up for anything you would use hamberger in. One thing I will advise, I don’t like the raw pack method of canning meat. I want to make sure that it is cooked before I can it, even though it’s going to “cook” inside the jars as you can it. I have turkey that has been in my pantry for 2 years now.
Freezer alarms.
http://www.tiptemp.com/ProductList.aspx?query=freezer&Submit=Search&gclid=CLT__JfW8qwCFWcRNAodUDzQMA
Our freezer is plugged into a ground fault outlet that’s in a protected corner of the garage where no moisture can reach it. It, of course, kicked out for no reason. Now we have a freezer alarm.
OK I know what I’m asking Santa for this year. A freezer alarm!
My family canned fish once, it was an involved process and you have to be careful to do it properly, (pressure cooker) but it tasted just like tuna and lasted for years.