Canning Your Deer Meat.

There are several ways you can cook your venison.  There are some recipes out there for cooking it as if it were a cut of meat you bought directly from the butcher.  We have sent our deer off to be processed for jerky and sausage for many years. Usually we ground up the meat for hamburger to make chili or tacos.  I will share those family recipes another post.  It might be just our house, but fried deer meat is a must for our family. 

So why not can your deer meat?  Canned meat. I wouldn’t think of “canning” venison like you would green beans or salsa.  But it’s a great way to save money and make your harvest last longer if you don’t want to freeze it.   

Using a pressure cooker can be intimidating but there are some easy to use products on the market right now.  If you have an instant pot, you can use the pressure cooker function on some of those products too.  You can purchase glass jars at most local grocery stores, Wal-Mart or Target for a responsible price. If you have plenty of jars but no rims or lids, they sell those individually too.  Amazon Prime, anyone?

Here are the materials you’ll need to get started:

• Pressure Cooker
• Pint or Quart Glass Jars
• Chunked Deer Meat (Raw)
• Canning Salt (1/2 teaspoon)

If you want to use a seasoning on your deer meat, we will leave this preference up to you.

Add your already chunked deer met to the preferred size of jars you’re using, pushing the meat firmly down into the jar. You will want to leave ½ inch from the top of the jars. While you are doing this step, please all your lids and rims to you jars in hot water to soak. Once you have filled the desired number of jars with deer meat; add your canning salt and any other seasoning you’d like to your jars.  Using a clean damp towel wipe off the rims of jar and add the rims and lids to your filled jars.

Following the manufacturer’s instructions add water to your pressure cooker. Set the filled jars into the cooker and turn on the heat.  Let it steam for 5 minutes without the weight, then set the weight gauge to 10 PSI. You can start your time once the weight blows off the steam.

The time varies for the size of jars you’re using: 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts

When the time is up turn off the heat.  Wait 20-30 minutes and nudge the weight to make sure there is no steam coming out. If there is still pressure allow to cool until you can nudge the weight and does not forcibly release steam. Remove the lid and remove jars into a folded towel. Do not put jars where they can make contact to a cold surface or cool draft as the jars can crack or cause the seal to fail. You will hear the jars ping as they seal. Do not mess with the lids while they are cooling, that can cause them to not seal properly.

 If you are above 1,000 feet altitude it is recommended to use 15 PSI weight instead of 10 PSI weight.

If you have tried canning deer met, let us know what you think!