Canning Chicken (Super Easy Raw Pack)

you guys are not going to believe how easy it is to can chicken [Music] about two three weeks ago we butchered all of our meat chickens that was 153 meat chickens which it takes our large family a lot of food in order to have enough meat for the entire year but what happened was that uh 153 meat chickens completely filled up our chicken freezer and is overflowing into the beef and pork freezer and the beef and pork are about to get butchered so i need the freezer space back which means i need to get some chickens out of the freezer and onto the pantry shelf by canning some chicken [Music] this is a lot of chicken i need to grab some of these get them in get them defrosted and get them cut apart into pieces so that i can can them if you haven't canned meat before you are gonna be absolutely amazed at how easy it is to canned chicken now in order to be able to do a canner full of chicken i'm gonna have to get quite a few of these guys out i'm gonna expect that it's gonna take about six chickens to fill up a eight pint canner filled with chicken you know it's a little bit of an estimate because every single one of these chickens is a different size then i'm going to cut them off the chicken carcass i'm only going to be dealing with the breasts today because i'm going to save those thighs and legs for something else and then i'm going to be making broth out of the carcasses you guys are not going to believe how easy it is to can chicken it is actually really incredibly simple but let's talk about what we're going to need in order to do this right now we're going to need a pressure canner and know your instant pot won't work if you want to know why check out this video right here that i did just on that so we're going to need a modern pressure canner and we're going to want to fill it up right away to just about two inches full and turn it on low we just want to warm it up we don't want to bring it to a boil we're also going to want to make sure that we have a canning rack at the bottom of our pressure canner to protect our jars from breaking from the movement of them boiling against the bottom of the pot i have my jars all washed and ready to go and i'm going to actually settle those right on into the pot too to go ahead and keep them nice and warm even though we're going to be doing raw chicken in the jars we still want to make sure the jars are nice and hot if they start to tip over while they're in the pot then it's okay to fill them with just a little bit of water to help stabilize them the other things that we're going to need are our brand new lids and our rings for our jars we're also going to want a jar lifter like this this is so important when you're canning and some sort of a plastic tool or wooden tool to be able to help arrange the chicken into the jars to reduce the amount of air pocket space that you have in there you're also going to want a nice wide mouth funnel now today we're going to be canning in wide mouth pint jars you can do chicken in quart size jars i highly highly recommend though that you use wide mouth if you can for something like a meat it just makes it so much easier to get in and get out you're also going to want a kettle of water that we can start heating as we start packing our jars filled with the chicken now we're just chopping this into smallish type pieces we're really talking about maybe inch squares you can go a little bit bigger than that especially if you're going to shred it at the end when you bring it out like you're going to use it for tacos or enchiladas or something they can be a little bit bigger today we're using boneless skinless chicken breasts you could do this exact same thing with the bone in so if you wanted to take those drumsticks that you just got off that chicken and put those into the jars you could absolutely do that everything else is the same about this process now we have all the chicken cut i'm going to go ahead and go get my hands nicely washed and get ready to start packing these jars filled with me [Music] my jars are nice and warm and ready to move on to the next step which is to actually put the chicken inside the jars now it's important to get a lot of chicken into each jar and you're going to be amazed at how much chicken will fit inside one jar a solid two cups of chicken will fit inside a pint jar we do have to remember though that we want to keep an inch and a quarter of head space for chicken that just means that we want to stop filling our jars with chicken when we get to where there's about an inch and just a quarter of empty space at the top of the jar in my experience it takes just a little over a pound of boneless raw chicken meat to fill a pint-sized jar one of the great things about chicken and canning chicken in this way is that as it cooks it's going to pull all the juices out of the chicken and then the meat is actually going to cook in its own juices which just really makes this super flavorful and absolutely delicious it's also going to be totally tender like pull it apart with your fork type of tinder it's going to be really good once you have all your jars filled then you'll be ready to move on to the step next step which is to make sure that you have these jars really well packed that's where this handy tool comes in play you can just kind of push it down make sure you don't have any open spots where you can add a little bit more chicken in there again always maintaining that inch and a quarter of headspace [Music] traditional directions for canning raw chicken or raw packing chicken as it's known calls to not add any additional liquid so that when the chicken pulls its own liquid out that's all the liquid that's in there i find that if you do this it will leave a portion of your chicken uncovered by liquid at the end of the canning which isn't really a safety issue but it's not very pretty either to be honest so i like to add just a little tiny bit of boiling water right over the top of my chicken before we get started for a pint-sized jar i'm only going to add about a half inch of water into this now we're ready to add the salt the salt is completely optional if you want you can leave it out of your meat you could reduce the amount it doesn't have anything to do with the preserving quality of the canning so it's really up to you it's really all about flavor you could also replace the salt if you wanted with another dry seasoning just make sure it doesn't contain any gluten or any thickeners or anything that can't be canned safely for a pint jar we're going to put in a half teaspoon of a good quality salt whatever you like to eat in your home now i have a few tablespoons of a really hot water in here you could also use vinegar for this next step and you would not have to heat the vinegar but you want to take a very very clean cloth dip it into that hot water and wipe the rims of your jars if any of the chicken ended up touching those rims it could leave a little bit of grease on there and we really don't want that that can reduce our sealing rate on this so we just want to make sure to get a great seal get all the grease off if there's anything else any salt grains or anything like that get those off the rim make sure that rim is completely clean before you move on now we're going to take our brand new lids and by the way if you're having a hard time finding lids check out the denali canning company i'll put a link down in the description but i've been using their lids this last season and they have worked really really well plus they're a great small family-owned business and i really like supporting that and then we will put our rings on just finger tight don't crank these on too tight you can have as many problems from rings that are too tight as you can from rings that are not tight enough can you believe how easy this is this is so simple all right now we're going to get these into the pressure canner just settle them right on in [Music] as soon as we have all of our jars into the canner we want to go ahead and settle the lid right on and lock it down make sure the screws are snug down really well or your lid is locked on really well depending on how your camera works and make sure the lid is level so that you don't have any places that the steam can escape double check that your heat is only on medium we don't want to bring the heat up too quickly otherwise it can be hard to control the pressure and wait until you start getting steam coming out of the vent the canner has now come to a full vent which means i'm going to start my timer for about 10 minutes to let the canner push all the air out of there with the steaming process and just steam at full speed for that 10 minutes the canner has been venting for 10 minutes now so i'm ready to go ahead and put my weight on it now all canning recipes including this one are written for sea level to 1000 foot elevation if you live above a thousand feet in elevation you're going to need to adjust the pressure that you use when you're pressure canning for your elevation here's a really simple chart on how to do that for me i live at about 2500 feet so i need to can at 15 pounds pressure i'm just going to pop that right onto the top now we're going to want to make sure that we let this canner rise slowly to full pressure remember we don't want to heat it really fast because if you do you're going to get into a position where it'll get too hot and then you have to cool it down then it'll get too cold and then you'll have to heat it back up and that can get really old really quickly but if you slowly bring it up to pressure then you'll be able to stabilize it much more easily when your canner is at full pressure if you're using a weighted gauge or a jiggler it's going to start rocking back and forth that's going to be your clue your signal that you're at full pressure you want to get that into a state where it rocks back and forth or jiggles about four times per minute if you can't get it exactly at four times per minute it's better to have it jiggle too often or be a little bit over pressure than it is to be under pressure or be jiggling too few times while we're waiting for the pressure canner to come all the way up to full pressure i really wanted to tell you guys about something exciting that is about to happen with homesteading family and that is the meals on your shelf pressure canning challenge in this challenge we're going to be walking through the process of pressure canning full meals all together in a group there are going to be several hundred of us going through learning together sharing our successes asking our questions and all getting to support each other in this process during the challenge you're going to put at least 21 jars of meals complete meals on your shelf these are meals that you're going to be able to go to your shelf pull them off heat them up and in five minutes have a complete meal on your table you have 15 different meals to choose from in the challenge to get to can things like salsa verde chicken meaty spaghetti sauce a white chicken chili you guys these are amazing delicious meals oh don't forget the loaded baked potato soup and the chicken enchilada soup these are amazing meals that your family is going to absolutely love and you are going to fall in love with the process of pressure canning and having meals just waiting for you on the shelf for when you have a busy day and you just need a break and you still want to get a good dinner on the table in five minutes or less hey if you're interested in the pressure canning challenge it's happening over in the homestead kitchen membership and will be starting right at the beginning of november so make sure you click the link in the description below to get on the wait list so you can get more information about the challenge and the membership we'll see you there the canner is just coming up to pressure here and you can hear it giggle that was a long jiggle but that counts as a jiggle remember we're looking for that four jiggles per minute so you hear how you have a cluster of jiggles and then you have a break that's normal and that counts as a single jiggle right now we're maybe just barely over pressure but i'd rather be over pressure than under pressure if you need to adjust the flame on your stove please do it very very slowly and as small increments as possible so that you don't end up really making your canner unstable as soon as you get to full pressure and you're getting that four jiggles per minute then you're ready to start your canning then it's time to start your timer for the processing time if you're using pint jars then you're going to want to start the timer for an hour 15 minutes you're using quart jars of chicken and do an hour and a half now make sure you keep an eye on your canner or an ear out for it to make sure it stays at full pressure the entire processing time once that timer goes off just go ahead and turn your heat off and then we'll be letting that pressure come all the way back down before we do anything else to it the canner is done processing i turned it off and it has cooled all the way back down to zero and now it's time to take the weighted gauge off it is hot though so make sure you don't grab it with your hand now we're going to let that sit for five minutes while the pressure normalizes then we'll be ready to take the lid off and get the jars out that chicken already smells amazing coming out of the counter it's really exciting so now we're just going to use our jar lifters and set them onto the counter onto a towel and we're going to make sure to space them out a little bit so they have lots of air space around them so they can cool down equally look at that it is still boiling inside that jar you can see it can you see how much amazing amazing looking chicken broth there is all the way around most of that just came out of the chicken meat itself and that chicken just cooked completely in its own juices isn't that exciting it's really important to let these jars cool all the way down completely undisturbed don't touch them don't move them don't let any cold wind hit them i even like to joke with my kids and tell them don't even look at them too hard you need to let those seals get really stable and let everything cool down before you start to move them around when they're in this state those seals are still pretty fragile once they cool down all the way those seals will be on there and it will take breaking your fingernails to get them off we're going to let these cool overnight or for 12 to 16 hours until they're completely cool top bottom inside everywhere and then we're gonna come back and check on them and make sure they all sealed our jars of chicken have been cooling overnight take a look at that you guys they look so good now okay let's be real sometimes canned food doesn't look as great as the fresh version of it but this is incredibly cooked chicken that is ready to sit on your shelf after you have them completely cooled you're going to want to go through and check and make sure all of their seals are good you just do that by pushing down making sure there's no movement if you find one that has not sealed properly pop it into the refrigerator and use it within the next few days then you're going to want to take the bands off of your well sealed jars this is really important don't store them with your bands on if you have any greasy feel to the touch with this jar then go ahead and wash that off right now you don't want to put anything dirty away in your pantry and then always always always label it with what's in there chicken and the year at the very least so that you can properly rotate it now this jar is sealed really well you do not need those bands on there to hold those lids on this is not going to fail in fact if you have canned your food properly you're going to really injure your fingernails to get the lid off that's how well that lid is on there this is now ready to sit on your shelf as long as the seal remains good which is one year two years five years maybe even ten years but remember this is going to be the most nutritious and delicious within the first year after canning this is amazing you guys want this when you are ready to use it all you're going to do is pop it open and it is ready to eat or to put in tacos or anything else and if you want to learn more about putting entire meals on your shelf that are ready to just heat up and eat make sure you click that link down in the description to get on the wait list for the meals on your shelf canning challenge we'll see you there

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 450,165

Keywords: Homesteading, Self-Sufficiency, Homesteading Family, Food Preservation, canning chicken, pressure canning, raw pack, canned chicken, pressure canning chicken, home canning, raw pack chicken, food storage, food prepping, canning food, canning meat, preserving food, pressure canner, canning chicken breast, canning chicken legs, canning chicken thighs with bones, pressure canning for beginners, pressure canning meat, raw pack chicken canning, raw pack meat pressure canning

Id: FhETAFMCzNc

Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 23 2021