(This is slightly modified from a post I made last week at InTheRabbitHole.com’ s forums. While I do post on lots of other forums, I call their forum “Home”, and end up posting a lot there. They have a tight-knit community established, and while they don’t have a massive number of registered users like some of the giant forums, they are all interested in some aspect of Urban Survival, so I feel you get quality over quantity.)
No work today, so I thought I’d do SOMETHING to improve the household standings, so I decided to can some corned beef brisket that I had found on sale.
On a side note, I have been canning for many years. Mostly low-acid, water bath canning of things like jams jellies, and fruit preserves. It is actually ridiculously simple, no more difficult than backing a cake from a box. And the end result is a product so good that you will call people to brag about it.
If you already have a working kitchen in your house, you should be able to start canning your own jams and jellies with less than $20 invested. Half of that would be a dozen jars, the rest being a funnel, jar lifter, and magnetic lid lifter. Add in a stock pot deep enough to submerge your jars and you are set. At least for high acid foods requiring water bath canning. Low acid foods like vegetables and meats require pressure canning, like what I’ve done here with the corned beef.
I feel a canning series coming up…. Back to the main topic…
I just opened a jar, and my gosh this stuff is GOOD. I would rank this right up there neck and neck with Yoders Bacon as my favorite long term storage item now.
The process is simple enough, following BBB (Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving), paraphrased:
Cut into 1 inch chunks,
raw pack,
add in spices
top off with water (optional)
Process at 10 pounds (based on my altitude) for 90 minutes in a pressure canner. (I LOVE my All American 921!)
Cool, sample, and then hide the results from the family.
Cubed brisket. YES, keep the fat!:
Jarred up, ready to process:
Processed, but it looks like dog food 
Sure didn’t taste like dog food…or my dog is eating a LOT better than I thought!
Eat it at night in the back of a locked closet so that you don’t have to share.
It tastes just like it was slow cooked in a crockpot, only missing a side of cabbage. I even ended up drinking the juice out of the jar!
YUM!
Yield was 4 pints per brisket “point” (vs “flat”). Bad news is now I only have 7 pints left…and one is promised to a buddy.
This is some SERIOUS good eats, I’ll definitely be doing this again!
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Fast Forward a week….
This morning, as I was writing this, I decided I should taste test another jar…MAN this stuff is GOOD! I decided to make a hash, one of my favorite breakfasts.
Prepper Hash
Ingredients:
- a pint jar of canned corned beef
- 1 medium sized butternut squash or equivalent sweet potato, parsnip, or other starchy root vegetable (home grown is best, of course)
- Onion. I used dehydrated onion flakes
The Process:
Peel your squash and cut it into 1/2 inch cubes. This makes cooking faster. Put it into a pot of water on high. Boil for 3-4 minutes to soften. Drain.- In a cast iron skillet, heat some oil. I used coconut oil.
- Dump in the drained squash
- Dump in the jar of home canned corned beef, including all spices and liquid.
Turn heat to medium to reduce the liquid, stirring occasionally.- When most of the liquid is gone, add in the onion. I used about a tablespoon, roughly half a fresh onion. If using fresh, put it in the skillet for a minute r so before before adding the squash and corned beef.
- Continue to reduce the liquid, stirring often. This breaks up the meat and squash, giving it the “hash” consistency.
When it is all cooked well, broken down and looks ready, let it sit for another minute or so to crust up on the bottom. Hash should have a nice crust to it. Everybody loves “crunchies”.- Serve with eggs. I used quail eggs 🙂
Burp loudly and let the cook know how much you appreciated all their efforts.
Peace,
db
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Man, that does sound good.
Speaking of pressure canners, size wise how is the AA 921? I have been saving up for an All American but am still not sure what size to get.
Also, have you tried canning outside on a turkey fryer stand or anything like that? We have glass top stove and I’m worried that the weight will have a detrimental effect on it’s longevity… Plus, cooking anything in the house during the summer is counterproductive in the cooling department.
it WAS good…too good, probably. I want another jar to eat for lunch, but I want it to last. You can only eat it once!
The 921 is pretty big, 21 quarts. I looked at getting smaller ones, but then you run into safety issues with pressure canning fish. For some reason, smaller pressure canners are not recommended for pressure canning fish, something I’ve done before, and want to do again…
I tried once to do it outside, had some issues with my turkey fryer, so said the hell with it, and did it on my glass top stove….I have a newer stove, and am careful about moving the canner around on it, and have not had any issues. I’ve used it dozens of times with zero issues, but I’ve read the same things you’ve read, warnings against using pressure canners on glass stove tops.
I’ll keep using mine on my stove top, against the “Pros’ recommendations. And yes, it DOES heat up the house…so I try to have do it all in the evenings, and while the oven is already on for baking something…may as well load up on hot foods while its heating up the house, right?
Were they mechanical problems or heating/pressure problems? I’m a tinkerer like you so I might just futz around with the fryer burner once I splurge on an AA. Plus, doing it outside will keep the wife happy and give me an opportunity to drink my homebrew while watching a fire, lol.
It was a “no propane at the time” problem. Lots of folks use turkey fryers for pressure canning.
Nice! We’ve been canning everything for years now…venison, beef, chicken…I got a turkey from work for Thanksgiving, I canned that, makes a great stew base. Follow the BBB and you cannot go wrong.
Thanks for the great blog!
I’d like to get more venison this year to can. I still can’t get used to hunting in Florida – you shouldn’t need bug spray and short sleeves when you go hunting! It should be a cold weather past time!
And thanks for the kind words 🙂
We had that problem this year in New England, too warm. No deer in the freezer, either 🙁
Last year (2011) we got two road kill does, better than nothing. Now we just hunt near the road, make a lot of noise and chase them into traffic! No dragging and saves on ammo…LOL
When I was a teenager, my father, a welder, welded two pieces of 4 inch pipe on the front of our Jeep, then mounted a cage around the winch mounted on it, all to “protect the winch”, he said…
Doubled as a mighty nice deer killing implement that protected the Jeep from any damage. Ever see someone steer TOWARDS a deer in the road? He did.
So, yes, I’ve also eaten my share of road killed deer…
Sure makes a mess out of the carcase though… hamburger?
Depends on how you hit them….we usually only salvaged one side.
Two questions, really. First, your brisket yielded 4 pints; can you give me an approximate starting weight of the point-cut brisket you used? Secondly, I’m really interested in the turkey fryer! We have a crawfish cooker but I wouldn’t have expected the heat to go low enough to maintain canning. Have I just not been daring enough?! Me?!
Sorry, but I do not recall. I believe this was one of the corned beef briskets you find at the local market, so not huge.
I’ve also picked up case lots from Restaurant Depot and pressure canned that….case lots there are roughly 45-50 pounds. I had a LOT of home canned corned beef….
….for a little while. I eat it pretty fast. This is one of my favorite home canned foods. Hard to keep it in stock!
As to the cooker, try pressure canning jars of…water. Just costs you the fuel and time, no need to waste any food in the experiment.
If the cooker can maintain the pressure with the water, move on to a low cost can-able food, like greens.
Peace,
db
My Ball Blue Book recipe calls for 3-4 weeks of brining the meat. Does your recipe/method require brining or just as written above?
Thank you!
I’d say it depends on the end result. When I brine rabbits or turkeys for smoking, I brine them for about 24 hours as a means to enhance flavor and help retain moisture. For making corned beef, the brining process is more of a preservative than a favor enhancement, so I’d stick with what Ball says….they know their stuff!