4 cut up chickens waiting to be canned & turned into stock
This past week, a friend of mine was giving away 4 roosters, which I was happy to take off of her hands. We picked them up on Tuesday and then processed them Wednesday morning before our weather turned cold (again). Since we didn’t have anything invested in them but time, I figured these would be great to try my hand a canning raw chicken!
I followed the instructions in my Ball Blue Book & covered them with water, leaving 1 inch head space. I canned the quarts of raw, bone-in chicken for 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.
While the chicken was in the pressure canner. I put the backs, necks, wing tips, hearts & veggie scraps into my roaster & added a splash of vinegar, some salt, peppercorns, & bay leaves, covered with water & cooked all night. I put the chicken livers in the freezer for my dad. We don’t care for them, but he loves them!
The process was very easy to do. I canned them in wide-mouth quart jars. Each jar held 4 pieces, and I canned 2 quarts of chicken breasts, 2 quarts chicken thighs, 2 quarts chicken legs, & 1 quart chicken wings – cut apart.
Canning Chicken – before being processed
I will say that if/when I do this again, I will definitely not put as much water in the jars as is recommended because the raw meat makes its own broth while it is in the pressure canner cooking, and I lost a lot of valuable broth that way. I was also afraid that the jars might now seal since there was so much broth in the water in the canner itself, but they all sealed! I will probably add enough liquid to fill the jar no more than half way. But, you should follow the instructions in the Ball Blue Book for your canning instructions, pressure, and time.
After the chicken had been in the pressure canner for the recommended amount of time, I turned the pressure off and let the canner slowly return to zero. Once the pressure returned to zero, and I removed the lid, I removed my jars & tightened the lids down according to Tattler Resuable Canning Lid instructions, covered with a towel, & let cool. All 7 quarts sealed and did wonderfully! They have been washed, dried, & placed on a shelf in my pantry.
Canning Chicken – after being pressure canned
Since these birds were a little over a year old, they would be a little on the tough side, anyway, so pressure canning the meat should help to tenderize it. The meat will probably be used in either soup or casserole dishes. I will let you know what we think when I get around to opening one in the near future!
Here is the post with my update to canning raw chicken.
This post is linked to:
Heritage Homesteaders Blog Hop #4
My Country Haven 