Ways to preserve meat?

meldelfc

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Are there other ways to preserve meat (beef, goat, sheep, hogs) besides in the freezer? I was just wondering if it was possible to preserve any in a different way besides jerky. What if the power went out? All the meat in the deep freezer could spoil.
Any ideas?
 

meldelfc

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IMO? Sorry, I am a little slow. What does that mean?
As a child, I remember my grandfather kept meat (fatback, I think) in a box of salt. Anyone have knowledge of how that works and is it safe?
 

patandchickens

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Canning is good but takes a huge amount of time and energy for, like, A Pig or other large quantity of meat.

Freezing is good but, as you've noted, depends on either cold weather or electricity.

Drying is okay if you know how to do it right but in most circumstances not the most long-lasting of preserving methods, also not easy in many climates.

Other methods exist -- salt-preservation, pickling, confiting, etc -- but are some combination of "not easy to produce safe results", "doesn't last so long", "produces very um unusual type of result".

Which is why the most traditional method of preserving meat, of longest standing historically, is ON THE HOOF :p Seriously. Obviously this doesn't work well with everything (for instance heritage chickens are much better suited to storage as live flock members than CornishX are, as the latter will experience high or even total mortality if you hold them very long past normal processing age) and requires you to have something to feed them and prevent coyotes from eating em in the meantime. But it is a real traditional way of doing it -- basically "don't kill it til you are ready to eat it" and "don't raise things bigger than you can cope with that amount of meat at one time".

Just an observation,

Pat
 

freemotion

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With two big canners going, you can do about 80 lbs in a day with time left to get a few barn chores done. If it is cold and the meat is hanging in the garage, you do have a few days to get it all done. I'm big on using different methods.....canning, freezing, salting.

Run over to www.sufficientself.com if you want more specific help with this! Lots of people over there can and salt and smoke meat, make jerky, etc.

I love canned meat. It is easy to then serve up. I like having cooking marathons and then having lots of quick meals later....like nice, long-cooked beef in the middle of summer just by opening a jar.
 

meldelfc

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Thank you, everyone for sharing your knowledge. I will read all the links.
Again,
Thank you
:bow
 
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