Canning Sausage

I love my Ball Blue Book of Preserving-its full of canning and preserving advice-on everything from blackberries to clams. This is what the book has to say about canning Pork Sausage:

"Shape ground pork in to patties or 3 to 4 inch links. Cook until lightly browned. Drain. Pack hot sausage into hot jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Ladle hot broth over sausage, leaving 1-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process pints 1 hour and 15 minutes, quarts 1 hour and 30 minutes, at 10 pounds pressure in a steam-pressure canner."

Pretty simple instructions for anyone who has ever used a pressure canner.

Granny never canned any kind of meat when I was growing up-she still doesn't-choosing instead to freeze any fresh meat that come her and Pap's way. Not long after I married The Deer Hunter I began hearing stories of the entire Pressley family coming together during hog slaughtering time-the men doing the slaughtering and the women inside the house preparing the meat for preservation. From the beginning I was interested in the sausage part-I'd ask "you mean you canned sausage? But how?" Even though they detailed the process they used to me more than once over the years I just couldn't fathom how it would really work. Since there was no longer anyone in the family slaughtering hogs, there wasn't a chance for me to see the process either.

Some of you may remember my Mountain Folk interview with Jackie Cole last summer. Her family still slaughters hogs each fall-and as she told me the details of handling the meat, I realized her method of canning sausage was the same one the Pressleys used. As I questioned her closer she finally gave me a jar of canned sausage, told me to take it home, cook it, and see for myself. When I opened the jar a few weeks later I enjoyed the best sausage I had ever eaten. It was so much better than frozen-and almost as good as fresh. Since then I've been given jars by other folks who can their sausage in the same manner-and its all been good-not just good but outstanding-however there is just one problem-they don't pressure cook it.

This is the method they use:

 

First they sterilize their jars, lids, and rings-keeping their jars hot.

Pat out their sausage and brown it on both sides.

Place as many pieces of hot sausage as they want for a meal in a hot jar.

Pour 1 to 2 inches of the hot sausage grease/fat into the jar. Attach the lid and ring tightly-turn the jar upside down.

After sitting over night-the jar looks like this.

They store the sausage upside down until they're ready to open a jar to eat. Placing the pieces in a pan they fry them for a few minutes to warm through-using the excess grease to make gravy just like you would with fresh sausage.

I've been studying this method for almost a year. Here are some of my thoughts:

• How could the sausage keep like this-how does it not spoil since it wasn't canned in a pressure cooker?
• Does the grease protect it somehow?
• I've read some toxins are odorless and tasteless-is the sausage spoiled and they just don't know it?
• In the last year-I've found dozens of folks from western NC who can their sausage like this. Even the lady I buy sausage from said she did-and her mother did as well. Could it be folks who are used to eating it are used to eating it-you know like when you travel to another country you may get an upset stomach because of the different strains of bacteria that are present in the food and water?
• Have all the folks who use this method just been lucky for the years they've been canning it like this?
• If I followed all the directions of my canning book-I'd water bath my pickles and jelly-which I don't-so is the sausage kinda like that?
• Wouldn't you get sick easier from meat than from jelly or pickles?

As you can see I've mostly went around in circles on this one. One thing I do know-folks who were taught this method by their elders-and have used it for the last 40 years aren't about to change their minds on the subject. And although, I'm not advising anyone to use the method-I sure won't be turning down any jars that are waved under my nose.

What I want to know is what do you think? Did your parents or grandparents can sausage like this? Do you think all the folks that use the method are just lucky dogs and their day of dying from botulism is coming? If you'd always used this method with no adverse consequences would you change cause the Ball canning book told you too?

Tipper 

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Comments

[Stephanie Eaton]

My brother in law just ask me if I ever heard of canning sausage. I of course came to the computer. I started thinking we eat meat canned in sealed cans and thet sell those little sausages in jars. Would that not be the same thing as long as your jars seal good?

[Jim Kerr]

I have watched my Mom can sausage the way you described. I have eaten sausage stright from the can on a bisquit. A lot of my friends say the had canned sauage this way. In fact I have been thinking of canning some for my on use.

[Big John Childers]

I tried canning sauage on 3/31/10 I hope its like my daddy uses to do it.I will give results in couple weeks
BIG JOHN R. TOCCOA GA.

[Big John]

well i tried to can some sauage today.i boiled jars,fried sauage well,installed into qt.jars dipped lids into boiling water and sealed tightly.turned over so greese will drip to bottom.daddy always done it this way.he died in 1970,i eat some of his canned sauage in 1972.tasted like just been cooked.3/30/10 by BIG JOHN..TOCCOA GEORGIA

[Heather Rojo]

Here in New England when we slaughter a pig we take the cuts of meat, brown them in a skillet and put them in a plastic bucket, cover a layer with lard, put the next layer, cover with more lard and more layers until we get to the top. We put the bucket in the cellar and use the meat within six months. It sounds similar to your method of doing sausages in the canning jar. We smoke our sausages until they are dry (like pepperoni, but not spicy). Our Scots Irish (1715) ancestors settled up and down the Appalachian mountain chain, so I see lots of similarities...

[Janet]

I found out a few years back that my family used to can sausage that way. I thought it sounded kind of crazy, too. They said my Aunt Goldie's canned sausage was the best. They shaped their sausage into balls, though.

[warren]

I have never done this but I would definitely do what the latest edition of the blue book said to do...they do research on it and ensure best practices. I'd rather not die from my own canning either.

[Chef E]

Here is my professional opinion, and my personal, as being a southern girl...

Sausage and grease are hot when you do this, so when it is turned upside down it pushes the air out, the culprit of bacteria 'oxidation' of sorts. I brought home a canned pork loin in just this method, but they did not tell me to turn it upside down, but the seal is so tight, I am sure it is fine.

My personal opinion is I agree with you, we get used to eating certain foods we are accustomed. I also ate food that sat out all day growing up, although in professional kitchens we have to follow those rules...buuuut scary as it sounds, so many of those rules are broken every day and people do get sick. You might think you have a bug, but it is probably food related...or poor diet, a whole nother can of worms!

Flip-flopping back to professional- The reason why we are told not to eat such foods is because 'health' professional set up rules and standards for eating foods, unlike when we were growing up. Some in the south just still do it the old way, some cannot stand the idea of 'germs'. Young children, infants, and the older generation, over sixty risk getting ill in ways the in between population do not because their immune systems are weaker, but if you eat this way on a regular basis, Tipper you are right your body adjusts.

Personal- My hubby is scared to eat that pork I brought back, he keeps calling it Pig Jowls, and I keep telling him "We ate that, and you did not even know, you said you loved it". So I will open up that canned pork, and make a fancy Italian Risotto...matter of fact I am tonight :) he he

[Becky]

I've never canned meat before. I remember my Grandmother canning sausage once. If I remember right it was pressure canned. Because I don't remember ther being any grease in the jar. It was the best sausage I've ever eaten. I'm not so sure I would try canning it without a pressure cooker these days.

[GrannyPam]

We have canned meat, for instance when we killed chickens in the fall, we cooked it off the bones, and packed the meat with broth from cooking it. Never canned sausage. Always used a pressure cooker for meat and vegies. Use boiling water bath for tomatos, tomato juice, and fruit. Safety now is different from safety then, I guess.

[Tipper]

Pat-I just dont know-but it does seem the grease is an important step in the process.

Blind Pig The Acorn

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All at www.blindpigandtheacorn.com

[Dee from Tennessee]

Dee from Tennessee

I think my family froze sausage-- no canning. I would just love to have some RIGHT NOW with biscuits-- this may call for a trip to Hardee's in the morning.

I do wonder about it like you-- the "evidence" seems as if it would be safe...but I know I would reallllllly hesitate. My mother would put the "Sunday dinner" leftovers in the oven and on the table - covered with a dishtowel -- and we would munch on it until the late hours of the night. I wouldn't do that now, but it didn't hurt us at all. She would refrigerate some of it, but not the leftover fried chicken -- it went in the oven.

[betsyfromtennessee]

Never mind my request.. You are not on Blogger. SO---I guess it's not possible on Wordpress. I am trying to get everyone to change to a 'better' comment form... Thanks anyway..
Hugs,
Betsy

[betsyfromtennessee]

Hi Tipper, I have never heard of canning sausage or any meat. I'm sure it is fine--since the old-timers used to do it. But--if I hadn't heard it 'officially' from you, I probably wouldn't have believed it.

My mother used to can pickles --and they were the best bread and butter pickles I have ever eaten.

Interesting post... By the way, I have a request --if you have time to read my YESTERDAY's blog. Thanks so much.
Hugs,
Betsy

[Wanda in Northwest Alabama]

Tipper, sorry I'm late with my comment, but had to check with older family members to make sure I remembered right. Sausage was canned by covering with lard, and we can't ever remember anyone getting sick from it. I know lard will get to tasting "old" after a while, but the sausages were probably all eaten before they had time to get old! I have been wanting some since you posted those pics!

[Pat in east TN]

When I lived in NC years back my neighbors always canned their sausage. Do you think the grease seals the jars like paraffin when we make jelly/jam?

[Rooney Floyd]

My grand parents canned sausage down in S. C. in the '20s and '30s before electricity and when all the refrigeration they had was an "ice box", literally. The sausage kept and tasted good. They also smoked the stuffed sausage and kept it along with hams hung up in a hall closet in cloth sacks tied shut. It was dry and you could break it off to fry for breakfast. We canned our sausage it like the Pressleys, and others without pressure cookers and turned the jars upside down. See on page 207 of the Foxfire Book (Vol. I, 1972) that canning was common in their neck of the woods, too. (without pressure cookers)

I'm going down to "Buddy's" in Gloverville this afternoon, get some fresh stuffed sausage, and just can me a couple of jars.

Rooney Floyd

[Tipper]

Julie-Ivenever heard of anyone canning meat in the same processthatthe Pressleysused for sausage.

Blind Pig The Acorn

Music, Giveaways, Mountain Folk

All at www.blindpigandtheacorn.com

[B. Ruth]

My mother-in-law canned sausage...
they were all raised in Alabama and learned it from their mothers....but she always pressure (cooked) canned her green beans...go figure..LOL
Must be all the dirt that might get trapped on the beans even with all that washing...
Besides the fat surrounding the sausage...do you think it also could be the salt and spices in the sausage that help preserve it?
I also agree with Helen's comment about the changes of this generation...soil, bacteria, antibotics, etc..
Sorry, but I would never can sausage this way today...but then I am allergic to sausage, it breaks me out in fat and high blood pressure. LOL

[Sandra]

I watched my grandmother and my mother can many things, but never sausage. I like the pictures and I love canned foods, but I would not eat the sausage. My grandmother used to leave Thanksgiving dinner on the table and throw a table cloth over it and at night we would all snack on it. I ate it then, but would not now and don't know how we did not get sick from doing that. love the photos

[Paul Wald]

I have always heard people rave about canned sausage. I am not sure if this was the method they had used. Like you and some other readers, seems a little scary to me. I might do a little research on this one!

[wkf]

How long will Lard keep? I would think the sausage would keep as long as the lard. My MIL wouldn't eat the pickles we made because we were newbies at canning. I still laugh at that

[laoi gaul-williams]

how interesting! i am wondering if this was something my ancestors did? the majority of them were farm people and so would have relied on growing their own...i wish i could time travel!

[Teresa]

Hubby's grandpa was the local man to bring your hogs to at slaughtering time, and pork was eaten at EVERY meal. I was completely astounded the first time I heard about canning sausage and had the same fascination you've described! The process was exactly the same; cooked like big sausage balls then slightly patted down, packed into jars, poured hot grease in the jar (from THAT same batch of meat) and turned upside down to seal. The jars were stored upside down in the cool, dark cellar. No one got sick and all those who remember eating it say it was the best stuff they ever ate in their life!

Hubby's Grandpa Sneed lived into his nineties and had 18 living children. Grandma Sneed died from childbirth complications, but his second wife is still living and in her nineties now. We are getting ready to go interview her as part of preserving our local history.

I find myself agreeing with Miss Cindy, the Ball Blue Book folks have to be overly cautious and therefore instruct us to overly process things in my opinion. I've always pickled my green beans with no hot water bath or pressure canner like my mammaw taught me and they are awesome!!! I've only had one jar to unseal in the celler out of 5 years of canning them that way.

We drink raw milk too, for nearly a year now. Never had a problem with it either. If we buy store milk, it's like tasting the difference between whole wheat, homemade bread and Butternut white. No comparison!

I would definitely try the process if I had the chance.
Thanks for the post!
--teresa in ky

[Donna W]

I milk a Jersey cow and drink raw milk. Love it! Ball says you can't cold-pack green beans, but my mom, Grandma, aunts, sister... all cold-pack them. I think they have to boil for three hours, but they keep just fine, and all my forebears lived to a ripe old age. I only had sausage canned the way you're talking about one time, as a child, when we were visiting an aunt and uncle on the farm.