Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[neopolitancrazy]

I just raw pack it~uncooked for those uninitiated to canning meat~add a tablespoon of salt(optional or can add less, depending on how you like your broth) and water and can it for 90 min. as per usual.

Just checking, is that a tablespoon of salt per quart jar? Have you tried/liked adding other seasonings?
Thanks,
Angela

 

[finnfur]

It will be especially useful to me if I get into bantams, which I am considering. I am looking to the future.

Good idea George - that way its one bird per jar and no mess with cutting them up.

 

[Rod-T]

Is easier to skin the birds or pluck them?

 

[Beekissed]

Is easier to skin the birds or pluck them?

If it's CX, much easier to pluck than an older, DP bird...the feathers just sort of wipe off the carcass. If DP bird of any decent butchering age, it's just much easier to skin them, especially if the carcass is good and warm. If it's a really old bird and it's a fall cull, both are hard...though skinning is still easier.. and you'll earn your meat either way you do it.

 

[gjensen]

If it's CX, much easier to pluck than an older, DP bird...the feathers just sort of wipe off the carcass. If DP bird of any decent butchering age, it's just much easier to skin them, especially if the carcass is good and warm. If it's a really old bird and it's a fall cull, both are hard...though skinning is still easier.. and you'll earn your meat either way you do it.

I would have never guessed that you would skin a bird.

I like skinning some of my culls. It makes it easy to walk out, pick a few obvious culls, kill them, and skin them. Fast and easy. The big cull, later, I have family help and we pluck them.

 

[Beekissed]

Just checking, is that a tablespoon of salt per quart jar? Have you tried/liked adding other seasonings?
Thanks,
Angela

It is and I have. Then I found that much of the seasonings I was using had a stronger, fresher flavor when added right before the soup was done cooking~garlic, parsley, onions, pepper, celery, etc. When I used them to make stock they were pretty much mush and had to be strained out afterwards and it didn't taste quite as good as when added fresh to the pot and some can even add or impart a bitter flavor when added to the beginning, like garlic.

I would have never guessed that you would skin a bird.

I like skinning some of my culls. It makes it easy to walk out, pick a few obvious culls, kill them, and skin them. Fast and easy. The big cull, later, I have family help and we pluck them.

We used to pluck them all the time but have moved away from that nowadays.

I don't have a good setup for scalding here(have to build a fire outside and use my copper kettle), I'm often butchering in cooler weather, and I'm usually doing it alone, so I find it easier for me to get it all done in a timely fashion if I just skin. I just lose a little fat by doing that, as we don't eat the skins anyway, but will use them for stock making when we do pluck. Unless I'm doing CX~which will most likely never happen again~I don't broil or oven roast a chicken any longer. We can them all. They have better flavor, are more tender and go further that way.

On a really skinny, scrawny cull that I'm just doing as a single, I'll often just split open the skin, remove the breasts, thighs and legs, slit the side to remove the gizzard and heart, then toss the rest to the dogs. Don't even bother to skin or gut them all the way. It doesn't go to waste.

 

[NanaKat]

That's exactly what we do also George. Skinning is fast, simple and easy.
Then the family butchering session is so much easier with all hands on deck to help bleed, dunk, pluck, gut, flash and ice. Then the final scrape of errant feathers and bagging for refrigerator resting is a hilarious session enjoyed by the ladies around the kitchen table. The boys take the innards and trimmings to the catfish pond and burn the feathers. That ash goes on the compost pile. Nothing is wasted.

 

[Rod-T]

So tablespoon per quart jar..
Just to be clear.. the jar is maybe only half water. So if I was to make salt water in a gallon jug ahead of time.. should I do 8 tablespoons of salt.. then pack jars with meat..then just top off jars with the salt water?

 

[Rod-T]

Or just add salt to each jar. And top off with water.. the the heat from pressure cooker with disolve salt?

 

[NanaKat]

Or just add salt to each jar. And top off with water.. the the heat from pressure cooker with disolve salt?

That is how I do it.