In the interest of honesty and not wanting anyone else to experience the same failure, I have a bacon update.
My method for canning bacon bits is to cut up the meat into about half inch pieces. Then I lightly brown the meat in a pan, drain off the grease, pack the meat into jars and pressure can for 75 minutes. And the result has been lovely bacon bits, fully cooked. Even the fatty pieces are crispy. Just like when you fry up bacon in a pan for breakfast.
It didn't work out that way this time. Last evening I opened the jar that hadn't sealed. Wanted to see how it tasted. The first piece I pulled from the jar was one of the fatty bits. It is bacon. There will be fatty bits, but this one was slimy. Even with the frying before packing into the jars and even with an hour and 15 minutes in the pressure canner, the fatty bits did not crisp up. I have 23 jars of slimy fatty bacon bits that are browned on the outside and disgustingly greasy in the middle. It is something I would have a hard time eating without gagging.
It is my own fault. The boxes the bacon was packed in said that the product was smoked but not cured. This was different from all the other bacon I have previously canned successfully. I should have paid better attention and canned up a couple of test jars to see how it turned out before canning the whole works at once.
Who knew. I thought bacon was bacon, either smoked or cured.
Live and learn.
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Maybe you can bake it and render it for some other use.
ReplyDeleteGorges...Too late. It was so bad that I finally just tossed it. It really wasn't salvageable. At least the lesson learned didn't cost all that much in dollars. :)
ReplyDeleteI guess sometimes the only thing saved is the lesson.
ReplyDeleteoops
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I cannot imagine it all being ruined. At least you found out before you bought more. I will remember that!
ReplyDeleteLinda...The store had changed companies where they get their bacon ends and pieces. Reading the labels on the boxes told me that the only difference in this stuff and what I normally buy was that this was just smoked and the other that I had canned successfully, was cured. The fatty bits didn't crisp up but remained soft and greasy. And as they were dispersed throughout each jar, there was no practical way to get rid of them. They truly were awful - slimy and really greasy. I will be more careful about the next bacon I buy for canning.
ReplyDeleteRob...I'm just glad the oops was not any worse than it was. If I could have figured out a way to salvage the stuff, I would have, but it was just way too nasty to save. Lesson learned.
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