My wife Susan and I have been vacuum freezing game meat for years. In October 2019 we put 300 pounds of Moose and 150 pounds of wild boar in the freezer. In 2021 we learned the hot-canning method used by many hunting families for stews and such in glass Ball Jars.
If you enjoy eating the game you hunt and like to preserve and tenderize your meat, read on.
We processed and vacuum sealed all the meat at home.
In 2019, we expected large summer 2020 BBQ gatherings, so we made burger patties and put large numbers of patties in vac bags.
And as we all know, COVID changes our lives forever. We still had lots of frozen moose burger and stew meat. What to do?
Part of my reason to continue to hot can was that my stew meat came out-of-the-jar so tender that I could cut it with a fork. And it cuts down mealtime prep. to minutes. Wow!
For stews, I then cooked/steamed or quickly pressure cooked fresh carrots, potato, onion, celery etc., then added the hot canned stew meat. I used the juices to make a flour gravy adding herbs, salt and pepper. Sooo Delicious! Yes you can “can” your veggies too.
This month, October 2022, I booked another Newfoundland Moose hunt as part of my bucket list. What to do with another 300 pounds of moose meat? I still had 20 or so pounds of that frozen moose burger I wrote about at the beginning of this article?
I decided to hot-can the frozen game burger too, like all those patties we froze plus all the burger intended for pasta sauces. The frozen burger would have be ok for longer freezer storage but the meat became so buried in the freezer making it very hard to find.
Accordingly, I gathered all the frozen moose burger, about 20 pounds and hot canned it for use in my delicious pasta sauces, “shepherds pie”, chili recipes, biscuits and gravy, meat pies, meat tacos, mince meat pie, and so much more. Hungry yet? I sure am!
I used a T-fal Pressure Canner below with Pressure Control, 22 Quart volume. But you can use any large canner. You will need Ball jars and lids.
There are other brands and styles, but I like this one because it is so easy to use.
T-fal Pressure Canner
I thawed the moose in large pots meat of cold water. Here is a basic recipe video.
I highly recommend purchasing a canning book like this one below, to become educated for safety and have delicious recipes.
In the past year 2021, I successfully hot canned venison, wild boar, chicken breast, moose and now moose burger.
After canning, you can label like this above with Avery labels.
Enjoy!
