Potting Meat

Meat potting is method of preserving meat in own grease inside a large crock pot. This is not something I would use as a primary means of food preservation, but if I had to preserve a whole hog and I did not have electricity then I would consider this method.

Since this method is not the most common I have attached two links discussing it, in the first, someone talks about how their family potted port, and in the other someone else discusses their current experiments.

http://theprepared.com/content/view/116/36/
http://lifeathillside.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/pork-preservation-success/

To pot meat pour some lard in a crock (non-reactive – glazed ceramic is best),

Next layer meat, and lard, letting the fat solidify between layers – meat should not touch other meat.

This is not a technique to store food long term, but rather a way to butcher an animal in the fall and have it keep over the winter.

In the heat of summer I would not trust this to preserve meat more than 5 or 6 weeks, and would inspect the meat thoroughly using both smell and sight before cooking.

Some cook their meat before potting, and there isn’t anything wrong with that, but the lard will stick to cooked meat more than raw, and I think the process works better with raw or salted pork (but that is my opinion only and is based upon doing this a couple times and some internet searches).

I cannot stress enough that this process was used for hundreds of years, but is not an “approved” food storage method because it cannot be proven to be 100% safe. When people relied on this method, they did not have other options if they wanted to store meat.

For my family I would rely on smaller animals that I could consume quicker and therefore need less storage ability, smoking, drying, salting, canning, and freezing before I invested a lot of food in potting.

However, I believe that people need information in order to make up their own minds, and so think it is worth you being exposed to this technique.

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