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[Neko-chan]

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[JRmom]

Smoking is a preservation method I'd like to learn more about. Anyone here do it on a large scale for meat preservation?

Canning meat is another method that I've never tried. It just has an "ick" factor to me for some reason, probably unfounded. I should just go ahead and try it.

 

[Leta]

There are all sorts of things that are cannable, but we choose not to because frozen tastes better (asparagus, corn), has less in the way of preservatives (ie, berries need to become jam, so you must add lots o' sugar), or because it doesn't meet modern safety standards (canned butter, for example). If you are willing to compromise on some of these modern standards, then you'll be able to can more. The best source of this information, IMHO, is Amish women.

If I was going to prepare for TSHTF, I would keep my freezer. I would spend $25 on an inverter and a couple hundred dollars on some solar panels and deep cell batteries, though, so I had a DC freezer.

If I was going to choose a freezerless life, I would build three things straight away: a smokehouse, an icehouse, and a root cellar. Smoked meats last a good while. If you build a properly insulated icehouse and pack it in the winter, you'll have a good source of chill into deep summer. And I doubt I have to extoll the virtues of a root cellar to anyone here.

 

[freemotion]

You also need a reliably cool cellar for those smoked and salted meats. You can't keep them in hot weather...cool cellar only. They also used to fry up the pork chops and steaks and pack them in a barrel with the rendered lard, making sure there were no air bubbles and all the meat was well covered with fat.

A lot of the meat was kept on the hoof....

 

[lighthawk]

I know my great-grandfather used to make salamis, as a way to preserve leftover pork meat. I've read in Grapes of Wrath, of the women packing porkbelly into a barrel with curing salt for their long move to California. (Yeah, it's a book, so I have no idea how accurate it is, but still.)
Brainstorm with me.

There are many different ways to preserve meats without freezing. The process your referring to was known a "salt pork" a very common practice back in the day and curing salt was nothing more than plain salt. Salt draws the moisture out of the meat so bacteria can not grow. Bacon used to be stored in chests lined with lard and stacked with a layer of lard and a layer of bacon then another layer of lard. It would still get slightly moldy over time but they would just scrape the mold off. Smoking was just a way to dry and add flavor to meat that was salt cured. All of these methods result in a high fat, high sodium diet. The average life span back then was 45 years. I'm 62 years old and I don't think I want to go there at this point. Although I do enjoy smoking some venison jerky or salmon from time to time.
That leaves canning. I know that beef, chicken, fish and wild game can be canned successfully and I'm sure that at one time or another we have all purchased a canned ham so obviously it will work for pork as well. Based on the ammount of time it takes to dry and cure meat or fish and eliminate the risk of botulism or salmonila it would seem to me that canning is the only solution. A pressure canner is required and instructions must be followed to the letter. Even then there is still a slight risk of botulism.
You can do it over an open fire, you don't need electricity to store it, but if that is the plan, the jars, lids canner and tools etc, need to be put away now. They will not be cheaper tommorrow.
Vegetables can be dried but unless you have a solar drier or a drier that sits over a wood fire it will require electricity. On a good hot summer day you can lay sliced tomatoes in the yard on a clean bed sheet to dry. In my zone however by the time I harvest I have very few sunny days.
I do maintain a 15 cubic foot upright freezer. It costs me about $7.00 a month to operate. I have 48 - 1 quart food grade plastic bottles of water stored in there as I don't use all the freezer space for meat. I harvest a deer annualy and the years I don't, I purchase 1/2 a pig. That and my blueberry, strawberry and vegtable crop are stored in the upright along with my flour stores. In the event of an outage the frozen water bottles assist in keeping the interior cold and they reduce the ammount of cooling needed during normal operation. Also in the event of a TSHTF event I have at least 12 gallons of potable water.
Rich

 

[SSDreamin]

Jackie Clay has a blog site I read frequently - she lost a freezer full of stuff and now uses alternative methods for everything. Really interesting.

I have recently started canning meat, out of necessity. We have two freezers - one upright that is packed full of everybody's junk - pizza's, cheese, cookie dough, etc. One large chest freezer that presently has very little spare room, due to DH's two large deer heads residing there

I love the convenience of canned meat - One pint of ground venison = one pound. Open it, dump it in the pan, add the other stuff - dinner in 10 minute's! I also can venison stew meat and cubed pork. One 1/2 pint of cubed pork (which is SO tender) tossed in with veggies from my garden in a wok and I'm eating in 5 minutes. Plan to try canning other things (bacon, ham, steaks, burgers and cheese), but I HAVE bottled butter - tastes great and I'm still here!

 

[AnnaRaven]

Smoking is a preservation method I'd like to learn more about. Anyone here do it on a large scale for meat preservation?

Canning meat is another method that I've never tried. It just has an "ick" factor to me for some reason, probably unfounded. I should just go ahead and try it.

Canned beef is yummy! I will be canning beef stew meat tomorrow. (LOVE canned beef.)

 

[AnnaRaven]

I love the convenience of canned meat - One pint of ground venison = one pound. Open it, dump it in the pan, add the other stuff - dinner in 10 minute's! I also can venison stew meat and cubed pork. One 1/2 pint of cubed pork (which is SO tender) tossed in with veggies from my garden in a wok and I'm eating in 5 minutes. Plan to try canning other things (bacon, ham, steaks, burgers and cheese), but I HAVE bottled butter - tastes great and I'm still here!

What cut of pork do you can?

 

[~gd]

You also need a reliably cool cellar for those smoked and salted meats. You can't keep them in hot weather...cool cellar only. Free where did you get the idea that PROPERLY cured meat requires cool storage, because that just isn't true! They require DRY storage and the normal cool cellar is way too humid. The salt pulls the moisture out the meat, that is how it is preserved but in a humid cellar the salt will pull the water out of the air and you are likely to get mold growth. I grew up on a old smokehouse-icehouse farm and the home cured hams and bacon were kept in the smokehouse or high in the rafters in the house or barn, not in the icehouse nor the cellars. Even today you can buy 'country ham or bacon' in the supermarkets of NC but don't look for it in the meat case nor with the frozen foods. Packages will be on room temp. racks near the meat section. ~gd They also used to fry up the pork chops and steaks and pack them in a barrel with the rendered lard, making sure there were no air bubbles and all the meat was well covered with fat.

A lot of the meat was kept on the hoof....

 

[Marianne]

I have seen instructions on how to can butter, even bacon, but I've never done it. I didn't know you weren't supposed to can butter.
You could dehydrate cooked hamburger AKA hamburger rocks for use in soups, chili, etc. Other than that, I have nothing...

Old freezers can really suck the power. I had a friend that left the state for 3 months during the winter. She flipped off all the breakers except for the one needed for several old freezers that were given to her. Her electric bill was $100 a month while she was gone. So much for a 'free' freezer.