canning ground meat

[Thyme]

Have looked for the thread on canning ground beef & cant find it . Have read directions in ball book on how to can gr beef. Has anyone canned it ? Am doing ground deer instead of beef.Do you pack the jars or just loose fill? About how much pound wise do you put in a qt jar?Do you fully cook the meat or leave the center pink? thanks

[Mom5farmboys]

I have canned ground venison before. What I did was to form the meat into patties about the same size around as a wide mouth canning jar, so they would just slide right in. Then we found some onions also about the same size around as a large mouth canning jar (big ones) and sliced the onions into about an inch thick slice.

Then I packed the meat patties into the wide mouth jars raw, with a sprinkling of salt on the top of each meat patty, and then the onion slice in between each meat patty. Then process at 10lbs pressure for 90 minutes in a pressure canner.

I have to admit that it has been quite a few years since we canned the ground vension. I like it better cubed up and canned so we never did it that way again. As I recall, afterward we had trouble getting the patties out of the jar as they all cooked together into kind of a solid mass. We did talk about trying it again but browning/cooking the patties before packing them into the jars, but could never justify going through all the trouble of grinding the meat if we were going to can it anyway.

Whenever I can meat I always fill the jar almost to the top leaving a good 1" headspace.

[NCLee]

Like Mom of 5, I can venison in cubes, so I don't have any working experience with ground venision. Hower, for ground venision my understanding is to can it just as you would for ground beef.

For your first attempt, please follow the Blue Book directions exactly as written. You may want to do a trial run with just one pint or quart to see how it turns out. I've done that a few times when canning something new that I wasn't sure about how to do it. Yes, it takes longer, but it'll sure build confidence when that trial run works out OK.

If memory serves a pint of ground meat equals a pound. You might want to consider canning in pints as you'll have more flexibility later. You won't have to open a quart if you need a lesser amount for a recipe. And, if you have a large pressure canner you can process 18 pints per batch.

Hope this helps, a bit.
Lee