Making corned beef

We are butchering our beef in a few weeks and I would like to make corned beef from the brisket using your recipe from the book Recession Proof Your Pantry. My question is, can I use a plastic bucket with an airtight lid instead of a crock? (I don’t have a crock.) And can you tell me what the purpose of the cloth over the top is?

Gayle Rush
Eugene, Missouri

A food-grade plastic bucket should work fine; I use one for kraut. And I DO have a crock. The bucket is lighter and easier to carry around! The cloth is to keep debris and insects out of the bucket and hold the dampness in the crock. Be sure to place a sterilized plate over the beef and a weight on top of that to keep the meat totally covered by the brine. You also might consider having the brisket or part of it smoked. Our friend, Andy Gunderson, smoked our last brisket and it was SO good! — Jackie

Preserving potatoes

We have an abundance of red potatoes and would like to freeze and can some of them for later use. We want to freeze things like french fries, sliced potatoes, and hash browns and then home can anything we can for long term.

Charlie
Bronson, Michigan

To freeze French fries, first fry them in hot grease, in a deep fryer, at 370 degrees until just light brown. Drain, cool and pack. It works well to spread them out first on a cookie sheet to freeze singly, then package them up for storage. This way they won’t clump together.

To freeze potato slices or other raw potato products, first blanch them for 5 minutes in boiling water, then chill in cold water, drain, and package.

Canning potatoes is a good use of smaller potatoes. I often just scrub and can my little baby potatoes whole with the skins on. Then, later if you want to take the skins off, you just need to squeeze and twist them and the skin slides right off. You can also can up potato chunks or dices. They can up quite nicely. Don’t over-boil them before canning them up or they’ll get mushy. You can either boil whole potatoes for 10 minutes before packing into hot jars or pack dices/slices raw in the jars, then add boiling water and process. Potatoes are processed at 10 pounds pressure for 35 minutes (pints) or 40 minutes (quarts). If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude, if necessary. Enjoy your bounty of potatoes! Great feeling, isn’t it? — Jackie

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This great event will be held at Aberdeen, South Dakota, January 27th and 28th at the Ramkota Inn. On Friday, I’ll be speaking on backyard fruit production. Saturday will be a full one for me, as I’ll be speaking on canning meat, meals-in-a-jars, and then, later on, herbs. I’d love to meet you there! Here’s the link: www.npsas.org — if you think you might like to come. Of course, there are lots of other speakers as well for you to enjoy and learn from.

I’d also like to remind you that there are a few spaces left for our May homesteading seminar here at the homestead. We are more than half full, so if you’d like to come, please get in your reservations to avoid disappointment. (Remember that we can only take 20 people!) — Jackie

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Highbush cranberries

Have you ever experimented with ‘Highbush’ cranberries? I have several of these large shrubs in my yard and every autumn, they are loaded with gorgeous clusters of berries. Even though they don’t smell very nice, there must be some use for this fruit other than feeding the birds. If they are high in pectin, perhaps they could be used for thickening jams, etc.? Thank you in advance for any ideas you might have.

Also, Congratulations on the birth of your new granddaughter. She’s a lucky little girl to have you for her grandma.

Julie C.
Bay City, Michigan

We have highbush cranberries growing wild around here. YES! I make lots of great tasting, pretty red jelly from these berries. I know they don’t smell the best, but the jelly does not keep that smell. My grandmother dumped a big batch she’d picked because she said they smelled like cat pee! (Not THAT bad, though, in my opinion.) I just use the “berry” recipe for jelly: 3½ cups juice, 5 cups sugar, 1 pkg. powdered pectin. Highbush cranberries make a very tasty and pretty red jelly.

We’re really enjoying our new granddaughter! Such a pretty, tiny thing! And she’s SO good, too. — Jackie

Butchering a goat

When butchering a goat do you let it hang for while like you do a beef, for how long, and does it really make a difference in the taste?

Shawn and Karen Moore
Ada, Ohio

No, you don’t have to hang a goat to age after butchering. The taste is fine, as is, and you can get right to processing. Goat meat is very seldom tough, so it doesn’t have to age to become tender. — Jackie

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Cloudy canned fruit juice

A few years ago I canned several kinds of fruit juice to use to make jelly. Now the juice has become cloudy. I know I should not have waited so long to use the juice. I would like to know if it is still ok to use the juice for jelly? Is there any way I can get the juice clear again?

Judy Shadwick
Soddy Daisy, Tennessee

Sometimes minerals in the water or squeezing the jelly bag can result in juice that becomes cloudy during storage. Be sure the jars are sealed and the juice smells fine. If it does, you can sometimes clear the juice by boiling it then running it through a cloth strainer. If not, you can still make jelly from the juice, but it may also be cloudy. The taste will not be affected. — Jackie

My canned soup smells like kraut!

Today I canned some homemade veggie soup. It had the usual cast of characters including cabbage. Toward the end of the canning session, my kitchen began to smell like kraut. Is this normal? I canned quarts at 10 pound pressure for 90 minutes. Also my recipe calls for ½ cup of vegetable oil, but I left it out since I couldn’t find any canning recipes that called for oil. Could I add it or should I wait and add it when I open a jar to heat up for dinner? Also, I am so excited — I just placed an order for 18 dozen Tattler lids!

Cindy Baugh
Dandridge, Tennessee

Any time you home can with a cabbage family vegetable (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.), the kitchen will smell like cabbage! Nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t add the oil to canned soup before processing. You can certainly add it after opening a jar to use. — Jackie

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Homestead water

My husband and I are looking for retirement property. Somewhat of a survival retreat for now then converting to a homestead when we retire. We of course are concerned first and foremost with water. What is the recommended gpm for a family of 4? Do we need a separate water source for critters and garden, or just a higher gpm well?

Tracey Morris
Salinas, California

An “average” well should put out 10 gallons per minute. But that’s just a ballpark figure. In reality, you can do with much less with a little tweaking. For instance, although our well puts out 15 gallons per minute, it doesn’t fill through cracks in the bedrock that fast. We can water for about an hour and half at that rate, then we have to turn the well off and wait an hour for it to catch up. It’s really not been a problem. We just have to alternate our water uses. For instance, we’ll fill two large stock tanks in the morning, then fill two other tanks in another pasture in the afternoon. We try to make sure NONE of them get too low. Then it’s quick and easy to fill them, one after another. When I watered the garden from the well, I did have to rest the well periodically. Many solar pumps put out much less, but often these pumps pump into a large holding tank which waters livestock or gravity feeds a home.

The main thing with a well is to be sure that it does not go dry in the summer and that the water is good to drink. No, you don’t have to have a separate water source for critters and garden. One good well will do the trick nicely. We remedied our “resting the well” by pumping garden and orchard water from our spring basin via a gasoline water pump. We can water with eight sprinklers at once and not draw down the spring pond at all. What a labor saver! — Jackie

Re-canning from #10 cans

I know that you have said that you re-can olives that you buy in the #10 cans, but is there anything else that comes in #10 cans that will take the heat/pressure of re-canning? I ask because once in awhile, I find dented #10 cans of tomato products at our local bent and dent store but it takes up freezer space to store what I don’t use after opening the can.

Debi
Howe, Indiana

Debi, you can re-can nearly everything you get in a #10 can! I, also, have gotten salvage #10 cans for VERY little and have re-canned them when my garden was only so-so on new homesteads. Some of the things I’ve re-canned are: tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, tomatoes with chiles, spaghetti sauce, baked beans, chili dog sauce, catsup, peaches, and jalapeño slices (these soften, but taste great). I also make recipes using the #10 cans to home can, such as using tomato paste to thicken home canned salsa, using tomato sauce in home canned spaghetti sauce with meat, chili dog sauce as an ingredient in home canned chili. Just be sure to process each recipe for the length of time required for the longest processing time, at 10 pounds pressure if it requires pressure canning, of the ingredient in the recipe requiring the longest time — usually meat. — Jackie

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Canning soup with meat

Is it possible to can vegetable soup with ground beef or beef stew meat added? Also can beef stew be canned?

Amanda Fondren
Columbus, Mississippi

Yes, provided that you process your pint jars for 75 minutes and quarts for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, you may have to increase your pressure to suit your altitude; consult your canning book for directions. — Jackie

Canning sauce for pork and beans

Today we had a 50th anniversary party for a couple from our church. We had baked beans made from pork and beans. We drained the sauce from the can and I want to try to see if I can home can it and use it for my own baked and/or pork and beans. It seams like a crime to throw it away. It is very good tasting and should work for my own product.

Nancy Foster
Dallas City, Illinois

I think if it were me, I’d make a big batch of baked beans, using your liquid, then can up the whole thing. Canning the liquid alone is probably not a good idea, as you don’t know how much bean/ham debris is actually in it, so you wouldn’t know what length of time it should be processed for. Besides, a batch of home-canned baked beans ALWAYS is welcome in the pantry! — Jackie

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Wood-fired stock tank heater

I love the wood fired stock tank heater, and I hope you write up a more detailed article about it for the magazine. How long do you leave the heater in the tank? How do you get the fire going? I am so tired of hauling water down to the critters while the big tank is just a huge ice cube.

Jane Jasper
Sapello, New Mexico

Yes, we are thinking of writing an article on building a wood-fired stock tank heater. Even if you don’t have welding skills, it would cost little to have a local welder put it together. All of the components are easily found at local dumps, old farms, yard sales, or a neighbor’s, house for little or no cost. Ours is built from an old, small water heater tank, a piece of pipe for the chimney, a square tube for the air intake (could use pipe), and a larger diameter piece of pipe for the inlet for the wood. We leave it in the tank all day for a frozen solid tank. By evening, it’s melted at least half of the ice! We pull it when the fire is nearly out, in the evening. In the morning, we put it back in and it melts nearly all the ice from a 200-gallon tank. To start the fire, we just crumple a little newspaper, light it, and toss it in, quickly followed by several pieces of birch bark or other fine kindling. Then we start adding dry, small wood until it gets fired up. After that, we add chunks of wood, as needed. It works very well but Will is already thinking of ways to make it better! We’ll keep you posted. (He’s planning on adding a longer intake pipe, running down into the firebox and a couple of feet out of the stove, to allow more air (hotter burn) and let him use 4-foot poles, which will self-feed. This will eliminate running down to the pasture several times a day to chuck wood in the heater.) — Jackie

Pickled quail eggs

We raise quail and our family loves pickled quail eggs, but they only last a few weeks in the fridge according to the recipe I use. Can you pressure can them? Do you have a recipe? Another question I have is I pressure canned some pumpkin this year, I put it in the food processor first so it was smooth. After canning the jars lost a lot of liquid, it was down a couple of inches. The water in the bottom of the canner was orange. Is it still safe to eat? What did I do wrong?

Crystal Misiak
Millboro, Virginia

You can find a recipe for canning pickled eggs on page 124 of my book, Growing and Canning Your Own Food, available with a click, right here! But here it is so you can have it right now:

18 whole hardboiled, peeled eggs (or the quail equivalent!)
1½ quarts white vinegar
2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp whole allspice
1 Tbsp. pickling spices

Mix vinegar and spices in a large pot and bring to a boil. Pack whole, peeled, hardboiled eggs into hot sterilized wide mouth jar, leaving ½ inch of headspace. Ladle boiling pickling solution over eggs, leaving ½ inch of headspace. Remove air bubbles. Process for 25 minutes in a boiling water bath canner. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your processing time to suit your altitude, if necessary.

Sorry Crystal, but you’re not supposed to can pureed pumpkin or squash as it is so dense. It is possible that the internal temperature of the food does not reach a high enough temperature for sufficient time for safe canning. Now we can pumpkin and squash in large dices, instead. On use, you just heat the contents to boiling for 10 minutes, then puree the chunks without liquid and use. — Jackie

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For our pigs, that is! We have two gilts that need to be bred and we have no boar. Friends of ours, Tiffany and her husband, Nate, had a boar they could spare but needed their three goats bred. So we traded breeding services and we brought all the animals home. Two of their goats are in with our Boer buck, Thor, and the other, which is part Boer, is in with our Nubian/Boer buck. The kids should provide plenty of milk and also extra buck kids (lots of tasty meat). It’s a totally win-win situation, as neither of us will be out any money and we’ll both get our animals bred.

Will’s been working on log siding for our house. Rather than pay $50 or more for a piece of log siding to finish our addition, he’s cutting slabs with our portable Hud-Son bandsaw mill and then using sanding discs on our angle grinder to clean off the pieces after he drawknifes them. So far, he’s got several done and they are looking good! My son, Bill, did this with the interior gable ends of his log home and his turned out great. Better than store-bought siding! Cheaper and better is our motto!

Our winter continues to be GREAT. Today it’s sunny and 42 degrees above zero! This is unheard of here in northern Minnesota in January. The usual temperature is 35 below, so you can see why we’re kind of nuts, here. True, it may not continue, but every mild week is a week closer to spring and a week that it’s NOT cold. — Jackie

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