Thanksgiving Carcass
One of the great leftovers from Thanksgiving to me, is the carcass from the feast. It gives me great Turkey stock for the year!
I put the bones, skin, and whatever meat I can’t peel off of it into my big stock pot and let it simmer away for a few hours. Sometimes I add the carrot, celery, and onion to it, this year I did not. I just wanted the true Turkey flavor.
I let the stock sit a day in the fridge so that any fat will rise and can be skimmed off.
I already skimmed the fat in the above pic. My stock is cloudy because I did stuff the bird and it got simmered into the stock. Not a big worry for me, but if you want a cleaner stock, don’t stuff your bird.
While that is heating up, I pull out my trusty Ball Blue Book and check my times and headspace requirements. Headspace is how much room you leave between the food in the jar and the lid. In this instance it’s 1”, which is right about the bottom of the jar’s threads.
The Blue Book is the canning Bible and if you are going to engage in canning food is an absolute must have.
Also, while the stock is heating up, I gather all my needed tools, make sure my jars are washed and ready. I do run my jars thru the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle prior to canning. Check the rims of your jars to ensure there are no chips on the edge that can prevent your jar from sealing. Also make sure you have enough lids and rings ready to go.
My space is clean and set up for the big show. From top to bottom my tools and supplies are lids, rings, ladle, jar lifter, spoon, funnel, wipe rag and oven mitt for grabbing hot jars. Not many tools for doing a liquid. Solids may require a bubble freer spatula.
This is my canner. It’s the All-American brand and does not require a rubber gasket. I was blowing thru gaskets yearly so we decided to invest in this kind to save the headache of changing them out or getting a load going only to find I could not get up to temp due to a gasket leak.
For this kind of gasket less canner you put a thin layer of veg or olive oil on the two edges that will touch.
Another reason I like this canner so much is that it has the dial gauge so I can adjust my temps with more precision
My jars are getting warm in hot water as I wait for the stock to boil.
Oops. I just heard a pop from my canner. It’s loaded and getting up to temp. Either the metal is expanding, or a jar broke inside. We will find out later which one.
My stock is hot so it’s time to start filling jars. As you can see the level is at the bottom of the threads on the jar. The area above is the headspace. This space gives the food room to move so to speak. Some foods need less headspace than others.
Once your jar is full, wipe the top rim with a damp cloth in case you dribbled something that may prevent your jar from sealing
Put your lid and ring on your jar. The ring only needs to be finger tight. Too tight and your jar won’t exhaust the air inside it. This is where your oven mitt comes in handy, so you don’t burn yourself.
Keep filling your jars and add them to your canner. What you can’t really see in that pic is that there is 2 quarts of water in the bottom of the canner and the burner is already on heating the water up.
I had enough stock to get 15 pints today. It’s in two layers in the canner with a metal trivet between the layers.
Once filled, put your lid on doing your best to make it as even as possible. Screw down your latches and let it heat up. I let it vent steam from the little brass looking nipple to the right of the handle for about 10 minutes before I put the rocker weight on it.
Due to my altitude I need to can at 15psi. After the venting I put the rocker on and wait for the canner to come up to pressure. You know it’s there when the rocker starts to jiggle. Set your timer and start to slowly lower your burner temp. Turkey stock calls for 20 minutes under pressure. You want the rocker to move 2-3 times a minute for the duration.
Mine seems to be happiest at the almost 2 mark
Once you have hit the required time, turn off your burner and just let your canner cool down on its own. Don’t try to rush the part, you can break jars if it’s too fast or burn the heck out of yourself.
When it is cool, and you can take the rocker off (be very careful! That rocker can be HOT!) without a rush of steam coming at you, it’s safe to open your lid.
Remove your jars with the jar lifter tool as they will still be hot and set them on a towel on your counter.
This is where the fun really happens!!!
Ping Ping Ping
Your lids have sealed!!!
Once they are all cool enough to touch, I remove the ring, check it’s staying sealed, and then give the jar a wash. Label with contents and date and store it away until you are ready to use it!!
On a happy note…the earlier noise was metal expansion not a broken jar!!
Other farm fun notes for you!
Thor has recovered quite well from his abscess surgery. I pulled the drain last Saturday without any problem. I left the cone’o’shame on him for a few more days until those incisions healed up enough without him tearing them further. He did bust the cone yesterday so off it came. He took all his meds with no problem and seems no worse for the incident. He’s such a good boy!
Both my primary heat sources have crapped out at the same time. My wood stove is in the process of being fixed, it needed to have the heat exchanger removed and a new section of pipe put in it’s place, and in the process, it was found to have multiple broken fire brick and two mystery pieces of asbestos shove up in the vent flap. That would account for the fact that it did not draw well and was a real bitch to light. Those parts are gone, but i’m still short one fire brick. The store did not have more and I had to wait for a new shipment. Plus the chimney needs to be swept. There is a 1/2” deep ring of creosote and soot all the way up. That is what happens because of the heat exchanger, it does not let enough heat up the chimney to burn that stuff off. I am hoping to have this all done with by Saturday, so cross your fingers.
My furnace on the other hand also crapped out. The pilot/generator assembly decided it no longer wishes to keep the pilot lit. Oh joy. I coaxed it along for a few weeks while looking for a replacement part. They are hard to come by and the company who made the furnace does not have parts for anything over 10 years old. Their advice to me, “you should just replace the whole thing” Yeah right lady, I got an extra 2K hanging around doing nothing to do that, NOT. I finally did find the right part and got it ordered, I just hope to find someone to install it toot suite
So for now, I am on back up plan #3 using electric milk house heaters. It’s tolerable in here, but I am concerned for the next few days. We have another storm coming in tomorrow, and it’s going to dip down to 5 degrees.
When it rains, it sure as heck pours. Sigh
Blessed Be
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Some great articles that I read this week, well worth your time to pursue!
has a great article this week on using up her leftover yarns. The Season of Leftovers Has an amazing article regarding body image. Athletic Greens Tastes Like Shit
Wow! I am truly touched that you shared my writing! Thank you so so much.
This is wonderful to read And so informative. Thank you Judy! Canning is definitely on my Learn-To-Do-This-To list. I have boxes of jars. First step accomplished at least.