Venison, canned and frozen

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blissful

Master Chef
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Mar 25, 2008
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The next three days, cutting up venison.

We are going to can it in the pressure canner. 7 quarts at a time until I run out of quart jars, then pints until I run out of those. The most I can manage in 12-14 hours, is 3 batches time wise per day. 2 does in the garage.

I'm following a raw packing instructions from a university extension. Pack cubed meat into the jar, add salt 2 tsp/qt or 1 tsp/pt, no water added. Vent the steam of the pressure canner for 10 minutes before bringing the pressure up. 11 lbs of pressure for 90 minutes/qt or 75 minutes/pt. Don't relieve the pressure, let it relieve the pressure by cooling which may take as long as an hour.

The steaks will get frozen, wrapped in plastic wrap then freezer wrap, or I could use the vacuum sealer.

Anything else, will get ground up in the kitchen aid grinder. I pack that venison burger in 1 gallon zip lock freezer bags, pressed out flat, for faster freezing and thawing. Each package is about a pound and a half.

The freezers are pretty full, so the more I can can it, the better.

I saw a thread on CWS's venison stew. Sounds delicious.

I used to make a dish called Russian Steak, it was venison cooked in a tomato sauce in the oven and the meat was fork tender and people could not distinguish it from beef. I lost that recipe long ago.

Wish me luck.:)
 
Wow, that sounds like more work than I'd ever want to tackle Bliss. Good luck!!
I think I've only tasted venison a couple times as a child so my experience is zip. I didn't like the taste at all, but others have said it was just prepared wrong, whatever that means.
I get the concept of cooking it from frozen, but I'm really curious about canned venison. How will you use it in a recipe?
 
Bliss, you are one busy lady!

I've had venison steaks, deer sausage (yum!), and venison jerky. Don't think I've ever had canned venison.
 
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Whew, big job Bliss and more power to you. If you are running out of freezer space and canning jars, you can make Deer Jerky. You're welcome.
 
Busy girl, check, send some to Kroll, ummm... make spaghetti sauce, filling for ravioli, pate, gravied for over bread or potatoes, stews, soups, sandwiches, check, jerky, you bet (heat to an internal temp of 160 degrees F for safety), check. Sorry Steve, don't be mad at me. :LOL:
 
Steve, if you were closer, I'd hand off some of the venison just to get out from under some of the work!

Okay so Dh took apart the first deer, thank you God. Then, we have the butterflied steaks, I vacuum packed them.

The hind legs, the roasts, are cut up (and I have more to do today), and going into canning jars, the first batch is cooking now. The second batch of 7 quarts I'll have ready after 4 pm today.

I've done this part before and I hate, just hate, working the meat off the front legs. So there is the top part of the legs, more meat, and little on the bottom. Those parts can be separated with a lopers. Some people throw the front legs out, all of it. Some people separate the top and bottom parts and then work on removing the fat and sinew and silver skin, from the bottom portion and it is so tedious. They cut the outside (fat and sinew off), then grind the meat into burger, the grinder removes some of the more hidden sinew and silver skin.

Others I've read, braise just the upper portion (with the larger portion of meat), for 7 hours, low heat, to get it fork tender. I'd rather have it canned but it is so hard to get off the bone and cleaning it up.

What should we do, it is a time consuming tedious procedure to deal with the front legs. Any ideas on what you might do?

I don't have an oven pan big enough to cook four front leg upper portions all at once, so I might have to do it in two batches if I go that way.

The second deer is a little smaller, and we'll take that apart all day tomorrow.

I'm half way between grinding it and braising it....urg. Help!
 
I would braise those legs. I think that should give you some yummy deer stock.

I know you said that you are running out of space in your freezers. Is there enough temporary space to freeze some of it and then finish canning or making it into jerky in a few days, when you have recuperated from the massive job you are doing now?
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. DH was a trooper helping and we were able to can everything that wasn't steaks. So 24 quarts and 2 pints. Lotsa food for winter. We are still waiting for the state to get back to us on the meats safety with CWD, which should be soon. I'm hoping for the best.
 
2 AM this morning, an hour and a half ago, Dh hit a 10 point buck on the way home from work. They are hanging it in the garage now. It's big. The car doesn't look too good but DH is fine and we have car insurance for the mess. I guess we'll get our venison jerky for sure now! And maybe some braised front shoulders too.
 
2 AM this morning, an hour and a half ago, Dh hit a 10 point buck on the way home from work. They are hanging it in the garage now. It's big. The car doesn't look too good but DH is fine and we have car insurance for the mess. I guess we'll get our venison jerky for sure now! And maybe some braised front shoulders too.
OMG! I'm glad to read that DH is fine. But, couldn't this have happened when you didn't already have a whackload of venison? I guess it never rains, but it pours.
 
There is a lot of damaged meat, but still, we will get some off of it. The GOOD NEWS, thank GOD, is that the insurance is going to have the car fixed instead of totaling it. We had a new transmission in it and many repairs and it was a good car but an older car. The push bars on the ford victoria old police cruiser saved it from any internal damage on the car. The structural parts of the car, unharmed. This is such a relief!

We cut up the two front sections of the buck today, 8 pints of venison and more left for jerky, so I'm in the middle of that. By 6 pm the 8 pints of venison will be done and the jerky will be dehydrating. The bad things, end up good, there is a blessing in it all.
 
Learn how to make salami?

Taxlady, I did end up with 6 lbs of ground venison. (kitchen aid grinding attachment) It is aging with salt in the refrigerator for 5-7 days. It will have a pork shoulder ground up added to it, so 2-3 logs of salami when done. I saw a recipe for a not too spicy type of salami, so I'm making that, it's a fermented smoke flavored kind of sausage. The fermenting takes around 3 days.

That venison was ground on 12/2, so I'll start the fermenting process on 12-7 or 8 or 9. We also canned another 8 pints, so 16 in total, 7 additional packages of steaks and two batches of jerky, around 3 lbs worth.

A year of blessings!
 
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Wow!! That is all I can say. Here I am barely able to walk and you are a :cool: non stop wonder. I am exhausted just reading your posts. Congratulation on a full and happy coming winter. :angel:
 
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taxlady, ha ha ha ha. Just in time, accidentally speaking, for Christmas! Turning lemons into lemonade, or deer/car accident into sausage!
 
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