Meat Storage on the Homestead...Long Term....Most Economical Way to do it!

If you are like me, and grow a big garden, then you have the same problem as me.....Storage space in the freezer for the winter months. Well let's just look at this very point. I do can as much of my vegetables as I can, but for beans, peas, broccoli, and cauliflower for example, I enjoy them fresh from the freezer for my meals. I am also a women who makes my pies up all summer with the fruits that I harvest. So I make ahead my pie dough and roll them out into the shells and fill them with my fruits and throw them in a ziploc and freeze them. So in mid January when I am making a big pot of bacon potato chowder it's so nice to just throw a pie into the oven and serve with our meal. So there is space for them in the freezer. Really does not leave much space left for storage of meat for the long winter months here in Canada. I have been experimenting, and researching all the many ways to preserve meat outside of the freezer.

I did take some extra lean Hamburger and put it in my food dehydrator and stored it in a vacuum sealed bag. Then I had to re-hydrate the meat when I wanted to use it. This method was OK, but did find after about 3 months it did have a rancid taste, but we survived, and the fact that it took several hours for the meat to be dried which uses a lot of electricity, so it was not that economical.

Next I tried canning. I did can some chicken and that did work great. I will continue to use this method, but for meats for salads etc. Like the chicken I will use for chicken salad snacks, but I do not find it is a great way for a main meal meat preserver.

This brings me to Salting my meats. I tried this last early Spring. I went to a garage sale and found a crock with a corked lid, so I brought it home and did my research. My first meat that I salted was pork. We ate it just the other day, so about 4 months after I had salted it. We did cook it on the BBQ, and it tasted really really good. It was not too tough, or very salty tasting. So this post will explain the major points about salting your meats for long term storage outside of the freezer.

First I shall explain exactly what Salting is. It is a very old way to preserve meat. Meat is cut into chunks and layered in a barrel or earthen crock with salt. Each chunk is completely surrounded by salt. Salting will pull the moisture out of the meat and produces an environment that will not allow for bacterial growth. Meat that has been properly salted will become very hard and must be soaked in many batches of water so to rinse the salt out of the meat before it can be prepared for a meal. Salted meat is generally used for stews and soups. Salted meat will last at least six months, although it may have to be repacked as the salt absorbs moisture from the meat and becomes brine. However; the longer the meat is in the salt, the more work it takes to make it edible.

Now on to how it is Salted Properly. First you need to go through out your homestead and find the most appropriate place to place the Barrels or crocks. So grab a thermometer and place it in the areas that you would like to store them and monitor the temperatures for a couple of days, especially in the dead heat of summer when humidity is at it's highest. For this post I will use pork as this is what I did first as my experiment. The net is full of recipes for pork, fish and beef.

Cut your meat into 4-inch to 6-inch slabs. Generally, for every 12 pounds, use ½ pound of pickling salt and ¼ cup brown sugar. Coat all the pieces with the salt mixture.

Sterilize a 2-gallon or two 1-gallon crocks. To sterilize, wash and rinse it well with boiling water.

Pack the meat tightly in the crocks (or jars if you don't have a lot of meat to store), and cover tightly with cheesecloth.

Keep the meat at 36°F (no more than 38°F; no lower than freezing) for at least a month. Wrap the meat in moisture-proof paper or plastic wrap.

Over the month you should check on your crocks to make sure you do not require to re-salt them.

I Hope that you have been given some confidence to give it a try or at least research this technique further and have it as an option for your future storage options for your meats. If any of my fellow STEEMIT friends have salted meats in the past or currently still do, I would love to have your recipes and your challenges you may have encountered. We all win when we share in our experiences.

Happy Trails
Sources:
https://eattomorrow.com/blog/2015/09/salting-pork-the-old-way/
http://www.westsidenewsny.com/columns/2015-02-02/putting-food-by-the-old-fashioned-way/
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-salt-pork.htm