Canning Venison

The procedure for canning venison comes from the University of Georgia Extension. This procedure can be applied to a variety of meats such as bear, beef, elk, pork, sausage, veal and venison.
You want to choose quality chilled meat. Obviously if you are the hunter there isn't going to be a deer waiting near a freezer for you. Remove excess fat and soak strong-flavored wild meat for 1 hour in a brine consisting of 1 tablespoon salt/quart of water ratio. Rinse and remove large bones.

There are two ways to can meat. You can hot pack or raw pack. Raw pack is easy. Fill jars with raw meat leaving 1 inch head space. Add 2 tsp salt per quart. Process 75 minutes pints/90 minutes quarts at appropriate altitude.

Today we are going to hot pack. I've done raw pack many times and wanted a change. I am canning the venision and thought it might help with the flavor. This actually was a good experience for me as this deer has great flavor. Almost a roast beef flavor. Much to my family's happiness. We aren't big game fans. But I didn't want to say no to something free!
If you are not so lucky to have someone do the butchering for you - well roll up your sleeves and get to work. Here in the bag are 2 hindquarters, backstrap and a couple other cuts. I have no idea what they were.
I was wondering how long it would actually take to carve up this slab of meat. It didn't take as long as I thought it would. I wasn't aiming for steaks, roasts, etc. I just cubed the whole thing for the meat size I would use for stew.
And I don't think I could get anything else off the bone.

I did freeze some of the bounty. This bowl is what we are working with today. We are canning it.

According to the University of Georgia instructions for a hot pack we need to do the following...precook the meat until rare. There are various methods such as roasting, stewing or browning in a small amount of fat. I chose the browning in fat method. My fat of choice is bacon fat. I browned all the meat in batches and filled 8 quart jars.
Jars filled with hot browned meat. I haven't added any liquid just yet.
For precooked meat add 1 teaspoon salt per quart. The following may be added - boiling broth, meat drippings (I didn't have any), water, or tomato juice. Leave 1 inch headspace. I chose boiling water. Which I didn't take a picture of. Fill jars with the water, put on lids, screw on bands and put in pressure canner.
I have only quarts so I processed for 90 minutes at 10 lb pressure in my weighted-gauge cannner. Don't forget to let your canner vent for the required time.
The finished product. I will use this venison for stew, in a gravy over mashed potatoes and drain- heat and add bbq sauce for bbq sandwiches. We aren't adventurous in our venison usage just yet.