Canning Beef

I had a freezer clean out. One of the items I get when I buy a portion of a steer is short ribs. I realize many cooks adore short ribs - I am not in that camp. I find them very fatty and with very little meat. The other day while perusing canning sites I found a "recipe" for canned short ribs. This was basically a reprint of the ideas from The Ball Blue Book of Canning (the original bible of canning and food preserving),

I thought I would give it a try. I had 2 packages of probably about a pound each. There appear to be two ways to can short ribs bone in and bone out. I decided to do the bone out - I read that the canning process can make the bones brittle and prone to cracking. These does make sense to me. When you pressure can the jars and contents get super heated. Who knows what stress this places on the bones.

I cut off all the meat and none of the fat on the ribs. It ended up being a very small batch item. I only had enough meat for 2 pints. This will be perfect. I can see if we even like them canned. Since it is a meat product it must be pressure canned for 75 minutes.

I used some of my own homemade beef broth as the liquid. The meat should be very tender. If all fails I can make a quick beef gravy and serve it over rice or mashed potatoes.