would canning meat be a wise idea ?will it last an still tastes worth a flip? holidays theres allways turkeys , hams on sale . thx yall

Sure, you can can meat. You have to be careful so you don't get into DIY bio weapons, but if you have a pressure cooker and the manual for said pressure cooker, you should have a directions. If not, plenty of cookbooks on canning have meat in them.

What you do NOT want to do is try water bath canning. You will create botulism sooner or later.

Pressure canning is the way to go. Here is a good place to start.

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can5_meat.html

Yes, canning leftover meat is way better than just freezing it. It'll last a lot longer though it is a little more work. Be sure to get a pressure canner and a good, NEW book about canning. Doing it wrong can unleash all sorts of nastys on your family.

Taste-wise, I think it's fine. You might want someone else's opinion though as I also think June bugs are a tasty treat.

-Blast

I've canned beef, pork, chicken and salmon before. It is okay. I never seemed to add enough salt to mine, so it was always rather bland out of the jar, but in casseroles and soups you wouldn't know it.

You have to have a pressure canner, and you have to exercise due diligence in keeping everything sterile. With a pressure canner, you can even can main dishes like spaghetti or chili or whatever you can think of, but you have to be just as careful as with meat. When pressure canning meat and meat products, don't take shortcuts. Plan on starting what you finish without unplanned breaks, and use the freshest and highest quality raw materials.

Some spices and seasonings will mellow when canned, some will intensify. You will just have to do and learn.

Don't be intimidated, but do always maintain a respectful attitude about it.

I'd never thought about canning spaghetti. Thanks for the realization.

My grandparent's used to can meat. Of course, they had a real honest-to-god cannery in their town, run by the local grange.

I remember my dad opening a can of meat in 1976, that had been canned over 10 years before. While it 'looked' a little funny, it smelled, and subsequently tasted, great!

Grandma used to can all her vegetables, meat, fish, whatever, to preserve for any future tough times ahead.

We were down visiting one year, after a spring flood had come up a couple of inches in her basement, and removed the labels from the bottom row of cans on the shelf.

We ate 'surprise' vegetables all through that visit.

Yep, anything you see in a can on the shelf at the grocery store you can duplicate at home. Tuna casserole, chinese food, stew, it can all be put up. What I like is you can do more exotic stuff at home, like venison chili, or elk stew, or moose stroganoff, and it is something you'll never find on a grocery shelf. Fresh is always better. Variety is a close second.

It would be cool to see a community throw in for a commercial retort packager. Imagine bringing your food to a local facility where they will seal it in single/multi serving foil packages like MRE containers. I understand there are some Mormon communities that do something like that with traditional mason jar canning. I think you could save a bundle if you made it a community event and got a couple of pros to help with quality control etc. We used to take the salmon we caught to a local cannery who'd put it in tuna sized tins for us.

Then again, there's a reason a can of corn costs 50 cents and a can of chili a buck. I doubt you could match that if you factored in the time it took to do it yourself. At $65 an hour, my time would make that corn/chili damned expensive. I guess it's a good thing I enjoy doing that sort of stuff, cuz I ain't doing it to save money.

Another great suggestion for canning is the left over turkey at Thanksgiving. When you are tired of sandwiches just can the rest.