Canning That Wonderful Bacon
Can you remember the first time you awoke in the morning to mom's fresh cooked bacon? Imagine the aroma of fresh fried bacon wafting through your home.
Now suppose that in an emergency you no longer have the opportunity to stand at your stove and flip the bacon with your spatula as you have done so happily in the past. In the event of an emergency situation this may very well be the case. Fresh bacon could become a thing of the past until such time as the infrastructure gets itself back on the proper tracks again.
What I would like to do in this article is to explain to you how you can continue to enjoy this wonderful pork product even though we may be existing in emergency conditions. It is not difficult to can bacon for just such times as those. Here are some simple ways to accomplish the task.
You can jar bacon by simply processing it as you would any other type of pork meat. In fact the presto canner manual lists a recipe for which you can readily can this product. The formula that I am presenting to you will safely jar one pound of bacon into a quart container with no difficulty at all.
Simply wrap your bacon strips in plastic wrap and place it into a jar with no liquid added at all. Clean the edges of the jar from any excess grease along the tops. Boil the jar lids and place on the jars with the rings. your lids and place on top with rings. Place the jars in your Pressure cooker for the amount of time and pressure listed in the list below. Remember use your pressure canner and NOT your water bath.
Pint jars should be processed for 75 minutes while quarts should be given 90 minutes to process.
Up to 2000 feet use 11 lbs of pressure
From 2001 to 4000 feet use 12 lbs. of pressure
From 4001 to 6000 feet use 13 lbs. of pressure
From 6001 to 8000 feet use 14 lbs. of pressure
I like to use quart jars which I process for 90 minutes at 13 lbs. of pressure, however for the sake of safety I usually add an extra 10 minutes and process them at slightly above the 13 lbs of pressure. They nearly always shrink to approximately a half of jar.
Once again I would like to stress that you should never process any meats in a water bath canner. They should always be accomplished in a pressure cooker.
When you decide to use the contents of your jar merely open the jar and take them out. Place the bacon on a pan in order to warm them up and to make them a bit on the crispy side. The juice from your bacon could be used for making a gravy to spread over biscuits should you so desire or you can add a bit of water to make a broth that can be used to make bacon soup or beans and ham.
Bacon continues to be favorite breakfast accessory food. The United States continues to produce over two billion pounds annually of this tasty product. In case you did not know bacon is produced from pork bellies and defined generally as smoked and cured pork. It matters not whether you use your bacon as a BLT, or possibly with your morning eggs or even sprinkled upon your green salad in the evenings, the fact remains that bacon is loved by all.
By Joseph Parish
Copyright @2008 Joseph Parish
