Canned Venison

[MT Gianni]

Stews, soups, enchiladas, anything you could use ground meat in except burgers.

[fiberoptik]

We dump canned bambi in a pan with a can of cream of mushroom soup & can or two of mushrooms. Pour over rice/noodles/taters. Might go good with sauerkraut by itself. My bil begs me to bring it with me to Mexico !!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[country gent]

While not venison during busy times on the farm Mom would open a quart of canned beef heat it in a pot to hoot and make gravey with the broth from the jar I believe she used starch for thickening the broth. Was a very filling meal over mashed taters

[Tripplebeards]

I’m getting ready to cut up a couple of quarters to can. Never did it before but my dad‘s done it and he’s out of town for a couple weeks. Wants to do it again and he was the one that did it years ago and it turned out really good. Don’t know what his process was so I’ll wait for him but I wanted to at least get the deer cut up into cubes and then I’ll re-freeze it till he gets home.

My question is I see one poster said half inch cubes and I almost think my dad said 1 to 2 inch cubes and was having a fit that I cut my deer up a few years ago into some half to quarter inch steaks. What size do you canners cut your meat up into cubes? I’m guessing 1 to 2 inch cubes?

[Tripplebeards]

Well I’m giving it a try I don’t have a pressure cooker so I’m just boiling in one of my big steel pots for 3 1/2 hours with a lid on it. I cut up two really small pieces of back strap that I already had thawed out I was aging in my fridge for a couple of days for to make bacon wrapped straps. The scraps are used were from the small muzzleloader deer I shot. They were cut in half and these were the smaller of the two halves. With some silver running down them. They were from the front part of the deer. I cut all the silver off and sliced into 1” thick pieces and then cut the “circles” in half which got me about as close as I was going to get to a little over 1/2” inch cubes. And then browned them up in a pan for a few minutes with some garlic salt that will probably tear me up in some pepper. Buy that stuff them into a couple of jars added a half a teaspoon of kosher salt and filled them up to the brim with 2 chicken broth cubes mixed with water(I had no beef). I now have them sitting in my big stew pot with the tops just poking out of the water with my gas stove heat turned half way up on five. I’m gonna let them boil for 3 1/2 hours and call it good. Guess we’ll see how they turn out I don’t plan on storing them long-term since I didn’t pressure cook them and read that there might be bacteria from not using a pressure cooker. Probably just leave them in my refrigerator till I use them. I filled the water up to the base of the lids and didn’t completely submerge them. I have to start looking for a pressure cooker... I might do some squirrels next.




All done

3.5 hours of boiling with a lid on on my boiling pot.

I placed them in the fridge after all the reading I did with the scare of botulism for long-term storage. I’m sure these will get eaten up with in the next two weeks anyways.
I read this is the way they did in the olden days before pressure cookers were invented and to boil the containers for 20 minutes before consumption after long-term storage to kill any botulism bacteria that might have grown in the containers.

[Elkins45]

^^^ I hate to be "that guy" but you could boil it all day and still not kill the botulism. Botulinum can survive 212º. You really need to pressure can meat or any other low acid food so you can get the water hot enough to kill the spores.

I can mine with a little bit of salt, plus usually a spoonful of chopped garlic and a slice of onion. You can drain it and eat it right out of the can if you want. Another good option is to use it in Hamburger Helper type boxed dinners or in soups. It's also pretty good dumped into a pot of gumbo.

I'm betting you can find a good used pressure canner at a yard sale or on Craigslist. Young people don't preserve food like my parents generation did, so as they are dying off their canners are getting sold.

[richhodg66]

Venison stew is about as good as food gets in my opinion. I keep it simple and use the MacCormick's beef stew mix from the grocery store. Two pounds of venison, a diced onion, diced bell pepper, eight or ten small red potatoes cut up with the peels on carrots, celery and I usually add a cup of spicy V-8 juice. Maybe a tablespoon or two of flour to thicken things up. Good and simple.

[1911sw45]

tripplebeards,

When ever doing water bath canning. You must keep at least an inch of water over the tallest jar the whole time it’s boiling. If you have to add water your time restarts from the get go. Your time does not start until you have a rolling boil. Again if it ever goes below rolling boil or water is add the time restarts to the original time to be water bathed. Water bath is not for any canning of foods of low acid, especially meats.

[Tripplebeards]

Yeah I didn’t even have the tops of the jars covered! I had it up to the top of the base of the lids. When I took the cubes out to put them in my stew I let them cook for a while (bubbling on high) in the crockpot before I ate it so that way so the internal temperature would rise up to an acceptable heat range. I don’t plan on trying it that way again after all the scares I’ve heard. I just cubed up 6 1/2 pounds of venison and I’m gonna borrow the neighbors pressure cooker or buy one before I can the rest of it. I never planned on keeping it long term after I tried it and kept it refrigerated as soon as it cooled down. It was all of about 24 to 48 hours after I caned them that they hit the stewpot.

I’m guessing the scare is for long-term storage? As internal meat temperatures can be safely eaten when less than 212° when cooking. I’ve read that steaks are good to go anywhere from 145 degrees on up...truth to this?

[MaryB]

Canned low acid products need to reach a higher temp than 212 to kill botulism spores. Forget the temp a pressure canner reaches... 240?

The reason you can eat a steak rare(100 to 135 degrees, I prefer a steak seared and body temp in the center) is the inside of the meat hasn't been contaminated by cutting into it. The outside has bacteria but the inside is basically sterile if the meat is high quality. This does NOT go for game meat! Deer is safe to eat rare usually, bear MUST be cooked to 145 minimum... Pork the same, over 145 the trichinosis parasites are killed. USDA has a guide...