Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Processing Day for the Old Hens and Turkeys

Processing Day came and "it was windy" would be an understatement. We had 40 mph winds while processing outside on the deck and I felt the wind should have blown the feathers off the birds. The plucker my husband made worked great for the 18 old hens and a couple young roosters (who snuck into the pullet box of chicks this spring). We also had 3 turkeys that soon proved to be a challenge. They were over 20 lbs each, I think closer to 30 lbs and the plucker would not do it's job for these big guys. Hand plucking was now the name of the game. Once I got all the birds fully processed, the turkeys were halved and into the freezer.
   The chickens were another story. We left them from "Windy Wednesday" until Monday the following week in the fridge in freezer paper to avoid drying of the skin/meat. I found this idea at The Prairie Homestead  http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/. Jill is awesome with having a good readership and she often shares her own experience, good ideas, and tips for farming.
      I got my courage up a couple years ago and started using a pressure cooker on her advice through the blog. I found it easy and can confidently pressure can everything now! I will warn the new glass top stoves are not compatible for pressure canning. We have propane so I find it very easy to adjust temp quickly when canning.
     The reason the birds were left so long was to allow the bacteria in the meat to tenderize it, it really helps! Without this step the chicken becomes hard like rubber when it begins to cook in a stock pot especially the roosters. I took the chickens out of the fridge and placed as many as I could into the pressure canner with about a gallon of water. At 10 lbs of pressure (once the rocker is going) I gave it about an hour and the birds were so cooked!  I had to do about 4 separate batches but because there is no jars I could just take the rocker off and quick release the pressure So it moved along in a morning.


 You can see the meat was falling off the bones. I strained the water with cheese cloth and picked the meat from the bones.
 I then tossed the bones into a stock pot and filled to the top with water again. I cooked it a couple more hours on low after bringing to a boil for broth.
 This is chicken soup. I put in carrots, onions, homegrown celery from my neighbor, spices,chicken and 1/2 tsp canning salt. Total when finished I had 14 qts of soup. Perfect for when everyone including mama is too sick to cook.
 In the end I got 33 qts of broth plus the 14 qts of soup. I also canned 16 pints of chicken for sandwiches quick meals and salads. This was twenty old hens and roosters! When I did the broth it was only in 25 mins at 10lbs pressure in the canner. When I did soups and the whole meat they needed to be in the canner 1hour and 40 mins for qts a little less for pints.  I will say be careful to let the canner cool. Unlike a bath canner the pressure must come down and with glass jars it requires patience. I found about 30-40 minutes from shutting off the heat to the seals releasing to allow for the lid to be removed for the broth. This is why it took two days to can and clean up.
      I love grabbing a jar of broth to make my rice or start casseroles. For years I was afraid of pressure canning, but the time saved and amount that can be put away in the fraction of the time is so worth the leap into pressure cooking/canning.

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