Those are the first time I done the meat and it turned out great . I didn't warm the meat though .I just cut it up in bite sized peices and packed it into the jars , It turnrd out great ,so, I'll stick to that method until I inheret a pressure canner ...LOL . I have a book here somewhere on pressure canning . I think it was from Ber-NARdin..

Wondering, does using the pressure cooker make the meat safer to eat than using just boiling water?

This is what I found.

Invisible microorganisms are present all around us. Fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry and seafood contain these microorganisms naturally. Yet, they are not a problem unless food is left to sit for extended periods of time, causing food spoilage. This is nature's way of telling us when food is no longer fit to eat.

There are four basic agents of food spoilage – enzymes, mold, yeast, and bacteria. Canning will interrupt the natural spoilage cycle, so food can be preserved safely. Molds, yeast, and enzymes are destroyed at temperatures below 212° F, the temperature at which water boils (except in mountainous regions). Therefore, boiling water processing is sufficient to destroy those agents.

Bacteria, however, are not as easily destroyed. The bacteria, Clostridium botulinum produces a spore that makes a poisonous toxin which causes botulism. This spore is not destroyed at 212° F. In addition, bacteria thrive on low acids in the absence of air. Therefore, for a safe food product, low-acid foods need to be processed at 240° F. This temperature can only be achieved with a pressure canner.

I actually have 2 books on canning .Your using the hot pack where you cook the meat to the rare stage . I used the raw pack method . Where you pack the meat in raw and don't add any water . here is a couple of pics

As long as the lids stay sucked down and don't raise up it's plenty safe to eat . The boiling inside the jar kills all bacteria and creates a vacume . There is no bacteria in a vacume . If the lids raise up then it's working bacteria in the jar . Don't even think of eating it if the lid raises up .Just trash it and save the jar . You can always sterilize it again for the next time

It tells everything you need to know in those books . Low acid foods as well .

Best deer I ate was canned with beef bullion, very good!

If you die from The bacteria, Clostridium botulinum ........can I have your Dog??????????

Snarer, not trying to start anything, but each of the meat canning directions you posted show PRESSURE canning directions. Neither has boiling or hot water bath directions to safely can meat. Boiling water temps DO NOT kill all bacteria. It needs to be a significantly higher temp, thus higher pressure is needed to reach the higher temps. More time at the same lower temp won't do it.

There are various bacterias that live in naturally boiling water, such as at Yellowstone National Park. This just shows that not all bacteria is killed by boiling water temps. Botulism bacteria can live in an absence of oxygen (sealed canning jars, which are not a perfect vacuum). Please invest one or two good coon pelts and buy a pressure canner. We don't want to take the chance to loose a fellow trapper. Besides, you don't want your dog to go to Vinke, do you?

Swifty

Please do not spread around unapproved methods for canning, if you insist on using them ... fine, but do not put someone else in jeperody(sp?). The pics of the book are too small to read, but if your method is listed in the book, I would have to ask what the print date is of the books?

Low acid products (meat and veggies) all have a high enough pH to allow the growth of c. Bot. c. Bot is the source of botulism food poisoning. There very well can be c. Bot spores in a vaccume, furhtermore c. Bot is an anearobic bacteria (does not like oxygen) which makes a vaccume the ideal environment for it to grow. Also, their spores and toxins (as already noted) are not killed (rendered safe) at a temp of 212 degrees f ... no matter how long you boil them. Furthermore, c. Bot is not a gas former ... so your lids will not swell (raise).

Venison, like most other items can be canned very safely, but you must follow an approved procedure ... with no deviations to the recipe or procedure. Use a recipe from the Ball Blue Book, National center for Home Food Preservation, or several of the universities. These recipes have gone through many rounds of thermal process testing to insure the thermal process is adequate.

Here is a link to meats from the NCHFP web page:

Canning red meat

I am an avid canner at home, and have been a supervisor in a commercial canning operation for a number of years.

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Swifty looks like we were typing at the same time ... you hit the nail on the head. Also, your eyes are better than mine (reading the pics of the books). I have not seen a hot water bath recomended for any low acid products in way too many years (probably since the 60's).

Vinke, Why don'y you can up some shrimp and let Mudd test next August.

I always thought if the lid was down then there was nothing in there to spoil it . I stand corrected . !!!!! Would 3 hrs of boikling not kill all the bacteria ???

NO, you need the pressure to raise the temp in the canner. Raising the pressure, raises the boiling point, which raises the temperature in the canner. It is the higher temp that you need.

I'm guessing if you go to the front of that top book, there is a section that talks about the need for pressure canning low acid foods. That should walk you through the why's and why not's. In fact, if you look at the page in the second pic ... I think that footnote section at the bottom says Botulism Toxin ... I'd bet if you read that it may help with the understanding as well.

Not trying to bust your chops ... just tryiing to keep you and others safe. Right now you are kinda playing 'Russian Roulette' with botulism poisoning.

There is a Government Food and Saftey office handy here . Should I have the bottles tested for the c.Bot ???? .

Might be worth a call to see what they have to say. But I think I know what their recomendation will be.

There is just the boiling bath for High acid foods . It says that low acid foods have to processed at temps of no less than 240 degrees F . Man , They even use different weights for different hights from sea level .
How could the c.Bot spores possibsbly get into the meat .

On one of the other forums ,there was somebody else boiling the meat for 3 hrs . Maybe I should pass the info that was passed onto me . He didn't get it from me .I got the 3 hr boiling time from him ..

This canning type thread comes up often enough, that this thread (at least Mister ED's post), should go to the archives somehow. Either that, or we put Mister ED on our speed dial.

I guess I didn’t pack the jars full enough. The stuff I read said leave about an inch and I left more. I’ve never had such bad results with fruits or vegetables. Oh well. Next time I’ll know to fill a little more. The jar on the far right is only half full because that’s all the meat I had ready and I didn’t have a pint jar ready.
The jars haven't been washed yet and that's why they look so funky.

I have found sometimes a year or more after canning tomatos that the top of a jar might show darker color or the seeds get darker on top. I throw these in the compost, figuring they have gone bad. So are discolored seeds a good indicator of tomatos gone bad. I found a couple qts. from '99 they were 1/4 discolored. Not sure how these were missed so long?