How To Save Your Freezer Meat When the Power Grid Fails

as we continue this series that we're doing on food preservation without Refrigeration we're going to talk about what do you do if the power goes out you lose the grid something happens and you're going to lose all the meat in your freezer and you need to do something drastic to save it very quickly in bulk is there anything that can be done yes and it's very very easy I'm going to show you how to do it you can save all of the meat in your freezer very very quickly you don't have have to let it

go to [Music] [Music] waste now in order to talk about this properly I'm going to have to give you a disclaimer this is not an FDA approved method but this is a Time tested method that has been used for Generations is still used to this day in other countries and is still used to this day by the Amish now we all know that the FDA approved method of preserving meat is to pressure canid the problem with that in an emergency situation is if the grid goes down let's say you have an electric stove you can't

use your caner or let's say um it's just not fast enough because you can only fit at the most seven quart drawers in your caner at one time and it takes practically all day to do it so you're going to lose your meat CU you're not doing it very quickly and you have to sit there and babysit the the caner even if you have a gas stove or you're doing it on a propane burner it's going to be very difficult to to stabilize a pressure caner in those situations so how do other cultures do this

and how have they done it for Generations how did the Alish still do it to this day they do not use pressure canners they never have canning has been around for way longer than modern pressure canners have uh and they have very safely and effectively been canning meat and you can do this very easily and in bulk and I'm going to show you the equipment that you need and it's very inexpensive probably things you already have uh especially if you live in the country and do any kind of outdoor cooking to begin with and these

are things that you can have on store in case of an emergency to be able to save your meat out of the freezer very easily now you absolutely can do this on an open wood flame um but it's going to be easier with propane in Louisiana just about everybody has one of these this is what we use to boil crawfish in every crawfish season um and we use it for other things as well you can buy it as a whole kit pretty inexpensively my voice is echoing in the pot so the the sound might be

a little strange but you're going to be able to put a lot of jars in here and what this comes down to is as simple as this you can water bath your meat and it will preserve it the chicken want to be in the video excuse their noisiness but this is the reality is that for Generations this is how people have preserved their meat before Refrigeration you can use uh Mason jars of any brand or variety I typically use the quart jars but you can even get the big um half gallon jars and I'll show

you those in a little bit you can fit them in here this pot's big enough to double stack we're going to see how many we can get in there at one time you may not realize how much meat you can actually pack into one qu mason jars whenever I pressure can uh I put about 17 lbs of meat well the meat cuts were 17 lbs one of them was a brisket I cut that big slab of fat off so you lost some poundage in that but regardless I got 17 pounds of meat out of my

freezer and stuffed into seven quj so you can fit a lot into a small space and preserve it where it will last on the shelf for decades and you don't have to worry about losing it and you can do it quick you can do it in bulk you can do it without babying it you're literally going to put them in the jars the meat put it in the water cover it with water and boil it for 3 hours take it out let it cool undisturbed by the next day it's going to be sealed it's going

to be safe it's going to be good on the Shelf this is how it's been done for Generations that's how you save your meat that's in your freezer in a power down emergency situation now these are quarts these are half gallons kind of put it next to me for comparison they're both very large and can hold a lot and the thing with uh water baing is that it doesn't matter the size of your drawer whether it's pints quarts whatever uh you're going to still boil it for 3 hours now we're talking about meat preservation right

now so I'm going to tell you that all meats are going to be 3 hours all sizes are going to be 3 hours I will put a list at the end of the different times for different things that you would need to water bath if you're going to preserve through water bath now this is considered Rebel canning this is not FDA approved again I know there's going to be a million comments saying that's not how you do it I'm not talking about the official FDA approved way to do things I'm talking about the Heritage traditional

way things have been done for generations and what you can do in an emergency situation so that you don't lose everything in your freezers all at one time so let's see how many we can fit into here all right we fit the whole case that's 12 quart drawers into the C into the the pot we can put our rack and stack a whole another case that's 24 quart jars that we can fit in this one pot at one time that'll get the job done really really quick again remember you would be surprised how much meat

you can pack if you debone it into a quart Jord you can technically can the the bone as well but it's going to take up a lot of space uh and it's not worth it you better to cut the meat off use it um if you want boil the bones and save the broth from it you can can that as well and preserve it for later uses uh now again it's going to be 3 hours for all Meats across the board there are other times that are less for different things since this is about meat

I'm going to give you that but at the end I will give you a list make it quick and easy you can write it all down so that you know because the reality is is that you can water bath everything yes it's going to take more time than pressure canning but it's going to take less equipment less effort and less babying it and you can do it on an open fire if you need to or with a propane burner and a really big pot so you can get it done quickly so I hope that helps

you but put that in your knowledge Bank have some equipment on hand you never know we lose power here quite a bit I mentioned it before we're Louisiana we have hurricanes um we have you know generators and things to kind of preserve it but you never know if you have a situation that's more longterm or even Supply chains problems where you can't get uh the fuel that you need need whatever the situation just be prepared even if it's just with knowledge and knowing how to preserve your meat so you don't lose everything in your freezer

this is how they've done it this is how they still do it overseas this is how the omish do it it's safe it's effective I would do this in an emergency [Music] situation all right so now have to bring up botulism I'm not going to talk too much on this I'll do a whole separate video on Rebel canning the science behind pressure canning and rebel canning and all of those things but the biggest uh threat in Canning is going to be botulism and that's what most people are afraid of and that's why you press your

can and you don't water bath and all this okay so here's the thing first of all botulism is found in the dirt so you're going to be more likely to get it from root plants like potatoes and carrots not very likely from meat and we're talking about meat preservation today um but also what you're doing in the 3-hour water bath is the same thing you're doing in the 90minut pressure canning it's just taking twice as long to do it um but you're doing it with easier equipment and you're doing four times as much at the

same time so um there's just that that benefit to it and you don't have to be so precise which is hard to do if you're doing like you know a wood fire something like that you can get water up to a boil easily on a wood fire not so easy to maintain exactly 10 pounds of pressure temperature wise in a pressure caner and all of that that's why water bath is more practical for an emergency situation yes it will take twice as long but it will be just as effective so botulism botulism is um in

actuality extremely rare in home canning most cases of botulism uh in America uh which are very very rare very few a lot of it is really found in infants from having things that they weren't supposed to have before their stomachs were prepared for it like honey and things like that um and then a normal human adult their stomach and immune system will handle botulism without any problem and you'll never know you encountered it besides that botulism is killed uh within you know 3 to 10 minutes of boiling temperatures so you're going to be boiling for

3 hours you're going to be good you're going to be fine if you're just a little unsure when you take your product out and and go to use it make sure when you cook it you reheat it you bring it up to a boil for a length of time before you serve it and then you will not have to worry about botulism at all botulism is is it can be dangerous to a compromised immune system but your chances of dying from food poisoning from store-bought food are far greater than your chances of dying from botulism

from home canned food in fact you risk your life life a lot more every time you leave your house you know get on the road or or do anything you're probably more likely to be struck by lightning um or even an asteroid than to die from botulism so I just want to kind of bring you back into balance because there's been a big big scare to make you afraid of Home canning um and make you more dependent on buying what was canned in a processing plant there are safety procedures you take to minimize the risk

of course um but botulism is not as dangerous as some would make you to believe that it is if you're healthy you have a strong immune system you have normal gut Flora um and if you make sure that your food is heated the way it ought to be before you eat it [Music] [Music] he