Canning Chicken Meat

[RoosterGeek]

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Whoa that's a lot of hens. Do you sell eggs? How's that EZplucker doing? I still haven't bought or made mine. I gotta get on it!

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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We keep about 2500 hens here and sell certified organic eggs through a farmers' cooperative. There are photos on my BYC pages.

The EZPlucker worked great, we ran the thirty birds and didn't have any skin tearing or broken bones. There were times when the feathers didn't flush out of the machine too well and I'd reach in and pull out a big wad, but it really wasn't a big deal. It was mostly the long primary feathers from these old hens that were wadding up in there. The birds were plucked very well and I'd only have to pull the occasional feather or two left behind. The model we have is supposed to do six birds at a time, but I was only doing four at a time. Maybe tomorrow I'll try six and see how it works, but I think I'll find that hand dunking four at a time in the scald water is easier to manage. The 2 HP motor really needs a dedicated 20 amp circuit. I had it plugged into a garage circuit that I think was also carrying a freezer and we tripped the circuit breaker a couple of times.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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I tried some today and it was excellent. I canned up the breast meat separate from the dark meat and tried a jar of the breast meat. I started to make a sandwich and scarfed down half the jar before the sandwich got made. Not mushy, not tough, but the perfect texture and excellent flavor.

I canned up an additional 19 quarts today, somewhere around 25 pounds of meat. I did as bigredfeather suggested and put a thigh bone in each jar this time along with a teaspoon of salt that worked well with the first batch.

The first time we packed the jars I was dipping broth out of the boil pot to fill the jars, was trying to pour the fat off of each scoop of broth, and was making a mess. One of my relatives brought over a turkey fryer in case we wanted to use it for anything. I noticed it had a tap on it so I filled that with broth from the boil pot, let the fat rise to the top, and after we packed the jars with meat we just held them under the tap and filled them to the proper level. That worked pretty slick.

 

[happydog]

Does anybody on here use a steam juicer for chicken? I'm planning to use one to "juice" the chicken, then cool, pick the meat off and can it separately from the broth. Then roast the bones with some onion etc, and then simmer it for 24 hours for stock.

I've been told this is a great way to do chicken but not specifically for CX, which is what I have. I'd sure hate to can 20 chickens and find out it's mushy!

I've canned CX breast meat before and the texture was perfect although it smelled (to me anyway) a bit like tuna fish. Worked out great for making chicken salad and chicken pies, but I've wondered why that one batch had a tuna smell.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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I think some of the smells we associate with tuna are because of the way it is processed and canned, which is the only way most people have eaten it. It's sterilized meat with some water and salt. There's bound to some similarities with canned chicken even though it's fish vs chicken.

I've eaten raw Yellowfin fillets straight from the tuna boats and it's completely different than canned tuna.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

We've eaten several quarts of this now. My wife made a casserole last night and I just finished up a chicken sandwich.

It is absolutely fabulous.

 

[SmokinChick]

glad to hear it.
have a great day

 

[wyoDreamer]

Mac in Wisco,

What breed of layer do you have? or are they a mix of breeds?
I went to school at UW-Platteville, and I think the weather out here in WY, where I am now, is a slightly milder version of that area - except we are at 7500 feet instead of 1000.

Thanks for the update on the canned chicken, I have filed this information away for when I can get some chickens!

 

[remadl700]

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This is what we have found also. If we know that we are canning the chickens we process them by skinning not plucking. Typically these are the older chickens.

We skin them and throw them into a cooler with cold water and ice and a couple pounds of canning salt mixed in. They stay in there for 24 hours are removed and then rinsed and cut up to be placed in the pressure cooker. Do not add internal organs to this or it will discolor your broth. We pressure cook for only 20 minutes. This allows the meat to fall off the bones. We separate the meat cuts and can according to the cuts of meat......white/breast/ thighs/legs..... We can in pints and fill with the chicken broth created. We then follow the Ball canning recipes for canning chicken in water. It very important that this is done to make so the meat does not get contaminated with Botulism.

They taste has always been great and we have lots of broth left.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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They are commercial red sex-links. This is the strain we are using now: http://www.tetraamericana.com/products/tetra-brown/

In the past it has been different strains of the same type of bird, i.e., Hisex Brown, Bovans Brown. All basically the same type of bird, just different breeder stock.

My oldest son is a Junior at UW-P right now...