Prepper Pantry: How to Make Ground Beef Shelf-Stable at Home

Meat is a valuable asset to have in your food supply. Did you know that you can safely make meat shelf-stable in your own home? Pressure canning or freeze-drying meat will extend the shelf life without any need for electricity to keep it frozen.

In this video, we give you a quick look at how we pressure can and freeze-dry ground beef for our family. Quite frankly, it takes a bit of work but now we have shelf-stable ground beef in our short-term food storage. YUM!

We recommend the All American Pressure Canner. It is especially helpful for long-term use because it does not have any gaskets to wear out. After borrowing it from my mother-in-law, I knew I had to get one for myself.

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[caffeinatedengineer]

I've found that my jars siphon if I do not allow the pressure canner to naturally release pressure. You absolutely need to leave your canner alone after it is done processing your jars. I know it is a long process. I know it's hard to wait, but I ALWAYS get very bad siphoning if I do not leave my canner alone for 30 - 45 minutes after processing. Then, once your pressure gauge has reached 0, you can remove the weighted jiggler.
Siphoning happens when there is a rapid change in temperature. Remember. The canner is coming down from 240 degree Fahrenheit. That means that your food is also 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you remove the weight too early and allow the canner to come down to pressure forcefully, you are creating the perfect condition for the hotter food in your jar to attempt to reach equilibrium.

I hope this helps. The All American canner is a phenomenal product. I hope it serves you well!

[Barbara-crzj]

You can use it with Hamburger helper, sloppy joes, spaghetti sauce with meat, tacos, soup, etc. Beef is too expensive to buy already canned. It costs like $50 - $100 for a #10 can of freeze dried survival ground beef.

[mosaicfarm]

We have an all american canner and love it!

We have never canned ground meet but our favorite thing to make with canned venison cubes is stroganoff. It makes a great mid week meal in under 10 minutes. One thing we found is we prefer to can the meat in broth if we are going to include the liquid when using the canned meat.

[divergentone]

For freeze dried product storage, instead of an oxygen absorber you should be using desiccant packs to keep out moisture.

[Monkchip]

Nice video comparison. My pressure canner is a Presto 22 Qt. Yours is really nice. I like to use the ground beef for Sloppy Joes, in Tomato Sauce on pasta, aka spaghetti, and for Tacos and Nachos. I'm trying to learn homemade hamburger buns with sesame seeds, so I don't hafta buy them whenever I make Sloppy Joes!

[passamaquoddy]

Would have been nice if you showed us the process

[allyrooh]

I want a freeze dryer so bad!!! You two are most peoples life goals!!! I really enjoy your videos and I'm so glad I found your channel before prepper pantries were cool!

[WestonUSofA]

I love your videos. I am not sure if you have one, but are you able to get a shirt mic or a boom mic to reduce the background noise and sound echoing? For everyone: Be careful pressure canning on an outdoor grill. Some outdoor grills can heat up way too much. 💥

Favorite recipe is Pasta 🍝! And Baozi !

[kimberleemonroe]

After all my years of canning I finally figured out you need to let the pressure come of naturally. No more siphoning. I have also finally realized you dont put meat in the canner if you aren’t a night owl.😂😩😂

[CcDecember-yqnf]

I am new to canning and did my first batch of ground beef. These are the steps I took:
1. Cook meat with onions, sea salt and pepper; I then drained the fat in a bowl.
2. I made a beef broth.
3. I filled my pint jars with meat with 1" head space.
4. I added 1 teaspoon of fat to each jar.
5. Added beef broth to each jar with 1 inch head space.
6. I de-bubbled each jar.
7. Wiped each jar rim & band clean with vinegar.
8. Placed the lid and ring finger tip tight.
9. Cooked following all the steps for 75 minutes.
10. Let pressure canner naturally de-pressure.
11. Openned lid
12. Placed my jars on dish drying mat (my new canning mat!). For 24 hours
13. Checked my seals
14. Cleaned each jar
15. Label and date. Store away.
I just realized that I'm so new to this nobody checked my work. My husband and I did open a jar a few days later. First we listened for the seal, smelled it, tasted it was good.
I read so much on botulism it frights me. How exactly do you know 100% each time? Does this feeling go away? I don't want to hurt my family. But canning solved the refrigerator/freezer problem if we lose power. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and received!

[craftsbeautyandlife]

I have my grandmothers old Gaskit style canner.

[marciabosteder]

Tacos
Hamburgar gravy
Spagetti sauce
Strongenoff
Stew
Hamburger HELPER..LOL
so many things I use Hamburger for.

[Jean]

Love my All-American. And I love to can ground meat - beef, Italian sausage, and breakfast sausage. The Italian sausage makes spaghetti night easy. Breakfast sausage makes gravy fast! And the ground beef - well you know how convenient that is. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[hollyf]

We arent a big fan of canned ground beef but we love canned roast, ribs, and chicken. Definitely a pantry must have<3

[Stephanie-izbl]

I just am reading your book and love it so much! Thank you!!!

[ALPHAJACK]

I have an All American 921 canner, it's the best. I really like to can meatloaf in pints. Alaska Prepper has a great recipe. Wish I could afford a freeze dryer. Did you get the upgraded oil free compressor?

[suzycowan]

We use our canned ground beef in everything, whether it is a fast sloppy joe, or a longer cooking lasagna (cooking the meat sauce first), it is all good. Our favorite though of course is tacos/burritos and hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes. We also pressure can breakfast sausage, which we love. It is so fast and easy now to make a quick breakfast gravy with a bottle of sausage and some cream-of-something powder mix or some Pioneer Breakfast gravy mix. I really want to try making some Zuppa with some of the sausage, but I am the only one who enjoys it. We love canning up meat, especially the most requested recipe so far, which is my Pork Verde which I have a wonderful recipe for Verde when all of our tomatillos come to harvest in late summer. The only thing about ground beef that I discovered is that we like it so much more by adding just a smidge of Better-Than-Bouillon-Beef into the liquid. Canning ground beef just plain to us just has no real flavor, so it just tastes so much better when you give it a little zing. By the way, I also have problems sometimes with siphoning, I have kind of learned in my area that it has a lot to do with the weather, so I usually choose days when the weather is good. I hope to someday soon have enough in my savings to purchase a freeze dryer, it has been on the top of my want list since they first came out. Thanks for the great video, may God always Bless you and your family with good health, and prosperity in all you do.

[hhhAmbientElectronic]

With regard to those broken jars, make sure your outdoor gas burner does not exceed 12, 000 BTUs. That might be the culprit (just guessing, though. I'm still learning, but thought I'd throw it out there). Wish I had a freeze-drier, those are freaking awesome. A bit rich for my current budget, though. Anyway, great video, keep it coming!

[tonniawilliams]

I have reused my lids that I pressured canned with for several years. I have never had one fail yet. I scrub most of the original writing off the lid and relabel but I leave a faded bit so I can tell it was a reused lid. Just so I know if I ever have one fail.

[cindypyeatt]

I've done tacos, lasagna, chili, enchilada's and pizza with our pressure cooked ground beef. Delicious. Love my All American Pressure Canner!