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Thread: meat preserving

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    Junior Member endtimes's Avatar
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    Default meat preserving

    How do you preserve wild game in the wild? With no freezing available. How did the native Americans preserve and not waste meat? What about fish also? Want to learn how before going off grid.
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    Welcome endtimes. Why don't you go off forum to our Introductions section and preserve a little information about yourself?
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    Lots of it was dried or smoked. Some was cured. Depends on what you have and want to do with it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by endtimes View Post
    How do you preserve wild game in the wild? With no freezing available. How did the native Americans preserve and not waste meat? What about fish also? Want to learn how before going off grid.
    Thanks
    Ben
    Off grid does not mean without refrigeration.
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    drying, smoking, and curing. we do it all. with meat and vegtables. we also can alot of food.
    we have 150lbs of meat curing right now.
    there are several good books on the subject. my best suggestion would be to get a book or two and practice with small amounts of food until you figure it out. it's not hard or complicated at all to preserve food you just have to know how to do it, as with most things; practice makes perfect.
    Last edited by mountain1; 01-18-2011 at 04:39 PM.

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    Might survive, might not Brazito's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mountain1 View Post
    drying, smoking, and curing. we do it all. with meat and vegtables. we also can alot of food.
    we have 150lbs of meat curing right now.
    there are several good books on the subject. my best suggestion would be to get a book or two and practice with small amounts of food until you figure it out. it's not hard or complicated at all to preserve food you just have to know how to do it, as with most things; practice makes perfect.
    Any recommendations on books of the several you mention?
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    There is a series of books called Foxfire and they show the life of my ancestor's and in these books you will find out how appalachian people lived without eletric and fridges. If they needed it they made it. Great learning tool.

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    We built a highly simplified smoke box on the homestead out of an oil drum, 12 ft stove pipe sunk in the dirt with a fire pit at the bottom of the mound. It worked well enough in fall and early spring but I wouldn't use it in extremely cold weather. We tried one out of an old fridge but i hated using it since it burned too hot. I was forwarned of this, but of course needed to fail for myself to learn. *eye roll*
    The old Mother Earth News magazines are full of ideas but for anyone who homesteads (off the grid I guess is the term now) I would pick up the book "Putting Food By" by Ruth Hertzberg, Beatrice and Janet Greene. They fit a lot of great info in a small little book. It will get you started.

    edit- I just googled the book and it's still in print but they have modernized it. Mine is the original from 1973 so I have no idea how the info in the revised editions are.
    Last edited by themoondancer811; 01-23-2011 at 12:40 AM.
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    Senior Member Winnie's Avatar
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    Putting Food By is the Bees Knees!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brazito View Post
    Any recommendations on books of the several you mention?
    i have these three as well as a couple foxfire books and dozens of magazine articles;
    http://www.amazon.com/Canning-Freezi...808402&sr=1-10
    http://www.amazon.com/Build-Smokehou...ref=pd_sim_b_1
    http://www.amazon.com/Smoking-Smokeh...f=pd_rhf_p_t_1
    there are many good books out there. the first one listed would be my recommondation to get started. that's just my opinion though.

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    My mother-in-law talked a lot about her mom & her canning everything, including meat.
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    Quote Originally Posted by charibelle18 View Post
    My mother-in-law talked a lot about her mom & her canning everything, including meat.
    the wife and i canned a whole bear and deer a couple of years ago. delicious!!!

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    Quote Originally Posted by mountain1 View Post
    the wife and i canned a whole bear and deer a couple of years ago. delicious!!!
    ewwwwwwwww.....it is done of course but I find it to be gross! Like, I'd have to be starving. Much rather dehydrated or smoked.
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    Quote Originally Posted by themoondancer811 View Post
    ewwwwwwwww.....it is done of course but I find it to be gross! Like, I'd have to be starving. Much rather dehydrated or smoked.
    have you ever had canned bear?
    well i'll just say this; the wife and i cook everything we eat from scratch with organic foods. all meat is homegrown or wild game. point is; we eat well and know how to cook good food. no prossed poison in our kitchen.
    this is one of our favorite meals.
    home canned bear with bear gravy, home canned green beans, and mashed taters...delicious...
    try it you might like it

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    No, never bear. My father just loves when I can deer for him, you'd get along well at a meal with him! I just HATE canned meat, gives me the willies. Pigs feet? The guys would slaughter the pigs and I'd watch Mom can them...blech.

    edit- I have actually never even tried bear meat, what is the taste like? Texture? Just curious.
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    taste alot like pork. we make sure to trim ALL fat off so it is not greesy. we rendered down all the fat for baking. makes the best biscuits/pie crust you've ever had. but i'm sure you know if your family has raised pigs. we still have some bear lard left. then we raised a pig this past summer/fall (420# on the hoof). we now have pounds of lard...and alot of good ol' craklings..
    the texture is just as any meat. alot like pork all around.

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    Quote Originally Posted by crashdive123 View Post
    Off grid does not mean without refrigeration.
    Amen to that!! I love our 21 CUf propane fridge!

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    We found a way to preserve bacon this past weekend that I really want to try. They canned it! I will need a pressure canner and need to get over my FEAR of them...but once that's done I'm gonna preserve me some bacon! YUMMMMMMMMM!
    Basically it was put between two pieces of parchment paper, folded in half and then rolled tight. Pressure canned for quite a bit of time and that was it. I wonder if the same method can be used for other things!
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    Backwoods Home magazine (Jan/Feb 2011, pp 22-24) has an article by Enola Gay on pressure canning bacon in jars.

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