Preserving Foods #18: Pressure Canning - Ground Beef

Nov. 3/12

I’ve been watching the grocery store flyers since I started pressure canning meat and finally a store had lean ground beef on for a reasonable price!

I picked up 14 pounds today at $2.47/lb for a total of $35.83
The 14 lbs filled 14 pint jars.

What I really like about the canned meat is that the pint jars provide just enough for Rick and I to get a couple meals from it, with little leftovers to sit in the fridge. I also like being able to cook up a whack of meat at one time. Having the taco meat ready will be really nice as I won’t have to worry about spices when preparing the meal. It’s all done at once.

The hamburg: I found two main options for canning hamburg (ground beef). One option was to boil the meat (sounded really easy) and the other was to brown it in a frypan.

I was going to use the boiling method, right up til the last minute when I watched that one last video just to make sure I was doing it right. The cook in that video said that the “wet” version of the meat would be soft. Although that didn’t really matter to me, I thought that maybe when it came to using it that maybe it would… .so I opted for the browning method.

Now, 14 lbs of hamburg is a lot of meat and I thought it was going to take me forever to brown it, but it didn’t. I divided it into the two biggest cast-iron pans that I have and I started cooking while I got the rest of the canning materials ready.

The two pans turned out to be a “bonus”. I was able to add taco seasoning to the one pan and leave the other plain. Now I have more variety available plus some “ready to go” taco meat.

Once the meat was all browned I packed it into the jars, squishing the contents lightly to get out air bubbles but not pack tightly, and leaving the 1” headspace empty at the top.
I wiped all the rims off with a cloth dipped in vinegar (to help cut through any grease that might have ended up on the rim) and I added the lids.

I had pre-heated water in the canner (hot contents go into hot jars and then into hot water)

Then I did the canning process according to my canner’s instructions and cooked the meat at 10 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes (as designated for my location.)

Note: no pictures at this time as the pressure canning is still going on. I never thought of taking a picture of the big bag of meat when I started. Sorry.

Oh.. and the taco seasoning mix was the following “per pound”:
2 Tbsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried cumin
1 tsp. salt

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)