James,
People frequently refer to losing power in freezers as good incentive to keep freeze dried food on hand. My family found out the hard way that your freezer full of meat can be canned with excellent results! I awoke one Friday morning and headed downstairs to get ready for work. I noticed a glow in the basement and, knowing that there were no lights that were supposed to be on, went downstairs to check it out. Somehow, the night before, the upright freezer door had either not been shut securely or had come open. Our store of beef, ½ cow, was thawing out and making a bloody mess (no, not the English saying, it was literally a bloody mess!). My mother had offered to teach us how to can meat the year before but we never set the time aside for it. No time like the present, so we cancelled school for the (teenage) girls, called mom to beg her help (she was thrilled to help out!) and started up the stove. We already had two pressure canners (two is one, one is none) and I headed to the store to buy another 5 dozen canning jars, lids, salt, etc. The next 35 hours were a solid round of cooking the meat, getting one canner loaded while the other canned and then unloading the jars to cool. We worked in shifts but were absolutely exhausted by the time we were done! We canned approximately 400 lbs of various beef cuts. Of the 60 or so jars we canned only 3 or 4 failed to seal. We simply put them in the fridge and ate them first.
Some observations on this adventure:
1. Keep your canner gauge checked for accuracy and have a spare gasket if you aren’t actively canning since you don’t know when you will need it!
2. As mentioned numerous times before, keep plenty of extra jars, lids and rings on hand.
3. The beef had started to thaw so we threw it into chests full of ice to keep it cool while awaiting cooking. Re-freezing thawed meat is not, I am told, wise.
4. A clean kitchen helps immensely with this sort of operation. Think of it as a lab and you will have an easier time with it.
5. You can supposedly can [some] meat raw but I was not brave enough to try it.
6. The canned beef is unbelievably delicious!
7. If you have relatives that are in the Silent generation (as defined by Strauss and Howe) they are probably full of great reams of knowledge and advice about what I would call ‘sustainable living’ (a term well abused by many statists, I know- lets take it back!). They were children during the 1st Depression and WWII and were most likely heavily involved in helping procure and store food for their family. Lessons learned in childhood like that never seem to go away even if they do dim somewhat.
8. Check your freezer for level and make sure it has just a slight tilt backwards so the weight of the door will keep it closed. This will ensure that you can learn to can like this at your convenience instead of as an emergency!
So yes, canning is labor intensive but the end result is no need for a fridge or freezer. How great is that? – Don M.