I'm on a food storage kick at the moment. The desire to fanatically grocery shop comes and goes for me.
Recently while visiting teaching the topic of canning came up and after discussing all the things that could be canned I ended up coming home with a bottle of chili that the sister we were visiting had just made and a fierce (yes fierce) desire to own a pressure cooker. Later that week I ordered one on-line from
Walmart, this wasn't really the snap decision it sounds like because I'd been thinking about getting one for about a year now. I decided to go the less expensive route by buying the Presto 23 qt. instead of one like the All-American with it's metal to metal seal. I knew I wanted to buy the big one because faster is always better in my book. I ended up buying new - just because. I also bought a bunch of new pint jars with the wide mouth lid and 40lbs of chicken from Kents when it was .99 cents a pound.
Walmart, this wasn't really the snap decision it sounds like because I'd been thinking about getting one for about a year now. I decided to go the less expensive route by buying the Presto 23 qt. instead of one like the All-American with it's metal to metal seal. I knew I wanted to buy the big one because faster is always better in my book. I ended up buying new - just because. I also bought a bunch of new pint jars with the wide mouth lid and 40lbs of chicken from Kents when it was .99 cents a pound.
When the canner arrived (I order site to store so that I didn't have to pay shipping and it came about 5 days before they said it would) I started canning. I've finished 32 pints of chicken. We love chicken salad so that should last for a few weeks. Today I was checking some prices on-line and found this blog where she had compared the price of Costco canned chicken to home canned. Wow I was impressed. I figure that for this first bunch I payed 4.32 a jar but that includes everything including the $80 canner and new jars, the more things I can the less that will be.
4/25/11
I've decided to add a little description of exactly what I did just in case you have questions.
First I have a Presto 23 quart Pressure Canner and Cooker which means I can use it to pressure can food into bottles as well as cook large quantities of food quickly.
The first thing I do when canning is check to make sure the vent pipe is clear (just by looking through or running a pipe cleaner or wire through. And check the canners rubber seal to make sure it's not cracked or looking off in any way). Then I get out my jars, lids and rings. I used 16 wide mouthed pint jars. This time they were Kerr jars but I don't have a preference. Just make sure they have no cracks or nicks, you don't want to go to all this work and have a jar crack or not seal.
I put the jars and rings in the dishwashers both so they are clean and so they are hot when I'm ready to use them. I put the lids in a pan of water and heat them up to sanitize them and to soften the seal. (NOT too hot for too long because they smell really bad if you run out of water - yuck!) - Boiling for 2 minutes is good.
Next I added 3 quarts of water and 2 Tbsp of plain white vinegar (to help keep the canner from staining) and the rack. That's basically 3 inches of water in my canner. MAKE sure you are using the direction for your canner. Then I put the canner on the stove to start heating the water.
When using chicken tenders I started this right when I got them out of the fridge, when I canned breasts I started cutting up the meat first. Some directions I've read say you should cut the chicken into 1 inch pieces I just made it small enough to fit in the jars, and I crammed it in there. I did add hot water to fill it to the lowest ring but I didn't add salt. My recipe book says that if you add salt you should use canning salt to avoid cloudiness at the bottom of your jars???? You can add 1/2 a tsp. per jar. I did not precook the chicken, although my Presto recipe book said to, what can I say I went with the directions from food storage experts who do a lot of canning that I found on the web, and tips from a friend who actually cans a lot of chicken. (long sentence sorry)
After adding the chicken, water and salt (I don't think you actually have to add water to raw meat but I did) I wiped off the top of the jars put the flat lid (rubber seal side down) on the jar and tightened the rings on. Then I stacked them in the canner. My canner allows for two rows of pints, if you are doing this just remember not to stack them right on top of each other, overlap them a little.
Lock the lid on but DO NOT put the pressure regulator on the vent pipe (in the picture above this is called one piece safety counterweight). Heat water at a high temperature to exhaust air from the canner, when you have a free flow of steam from the vent pipe let it steam for 10 minutes. NOW you put the pressure regulator on the vent pipe. FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS FOR YOUR CANNER. Canners are different there are pressure gauges and rockers, rubber seals and metal to metal seals. It's so important to read the directions for the canner you are using. If you are missing the directions for your canner check out this website for a link to different manuals. Just click on the colored text. http://www.pickyourown.org/pressurecanners.htm
Now that you have the pressure regulator on the vent pipe you need to wait until the pressure gauge (called a dial gauge in the picture above) reaches your desired psi (pounds per square inch) or pressure. For chicken at our elevation (Utah) I used 14 lbs. Once it reached 14psi I set my timer for 75 minutes (for pints) 90 minutes for quarts and waited. I kept an eye on the stove to make sure the pressure stayed constant at 14. Every once and awhile I would adjust the heat a bit.
When the time is up turn off the heat (if you can lift it remove the canner from the hot burner - sliding might not be a good idea for your burner) and WALK AWAY. You CAN NOT hurry this part just let it cool until the pressure reaches 0 and the air vent cover has dropped. Then remove the pressure regulator and let it cool another 10 minutes. The steam inside this thing is VERY hot you don't want to do something silly like popping off one of those safety valves unless of course you really like cleaning the ceiling of your kitchen and don't mind scalding smelly water / steam / vapor raining down on you.
Even at the end you want to open the lid away from you just in case.
Remove the jars from the canner wipe them off, label them and enjoy.
It made a nice tender chicken with out that kind of tuna fishy metal taste that some canned chicken has. It does look a little strange though (like canned chicken) just use a fork to mush it up and it looks much better.
originally posted at The Homestead on May 18, 2010
