How to store meat: without a refrigerator, in the freezer - methods, conditions and terms of storing meat.

At the same time, not everyone knows how to properly store meat so as to preserve its beneficial properties as much as possible.

In this article I will tell you some simple ways to protect meat from spoilage for further consumption.

Storing meat in a cold pantry

From personal experience of storing meat in a cold pantry, I want to say that quarters or half carcasses, as well as meat cut into fairly large pieces of 7-10 kg, are best preserved in such conditions.

Before storing the meat, we first need to thoroughly scrape the parts of the carcass with a sharp knife. This is done in order to clean the meat of contaminants.

The meat that you plan to store should not come into contact with water, therefore, it cannot be washed. After washing, juice is released from the meat, which is a favorable environment for the development of microbes.

Next, dry and cleaned pieces of carcass must be placed in a clean and dry container. This can be a large saucepan, a boiler or a barrel, at your discretion. A prerequisite is that the lid of the container you choose is tightly closed.

Meat packaged in this way can be stored in a pantry, the temperature in which should be from +1 to +4°C. Meat can be stored in such conditions from 7 to 12 days.

If you plan to store carcasses cut in half or into quarters in a cold pantry, the best option would be to hang them on large tinned hooks. But when hanging meat, be sure to make sure that the suspended pieces do not touch each other. Also, make sure that the meat does not touch the floor or walls.

How to store meat in a cellar on ice or chilled meat

Using this method at home, you can keep meat fresh, chopped into individual large pieces, quarters or half carcasses.

To begin with, the meat, as in the first method, is cleaned of contaminants.

Then, the glacier in the cellar must be covered with oilcloth; the meat should not be in direct contact with the ice. We place pieces of carcass on oilcloth. They must be covered with thick material on top.

We need to put smaller pieces of meat into stainless steel or enameled containers and only then put them on ice.

If the temperature in the cellar is from 5 to 7°C, it is recommended to store meat for no more than 48 hours. At lower temperatures (0-4°C), meat can be stored on ice for up to 14 days.

Storing frozen meat in a cool place

Frozen meat can be stored in quarters, half carcasses, or chopped into smaller pieces. Half carcasses or quarters, as in method No. 1, we hang in a cool room on hooks. But before hanging, we need to freeze them thoroughly first.

To understand whether the meat is frozen enough, you need to perform several small manipulations.

First, touch the meat, it should be firm to the touch and if you knock on a piece of well-frozen meat, you should hear a clear, ringing sound.

Also, sufficiently frozen meat can be distinguished by color. Ice crystals usually give it a grayish tint.

Also, frozen meat differs from chilled meat in that it does not have a characteristic meat aroma.

Frozen meat chopped into pieces is best stored in spacious, clean containers. A spacious barrel, box or chest is perfect for this purpose.

Before placing meat, the bottom and walls of the container must be lined with dried straw, hay, dry tree leaves (preferably fruit leaves) or wood shavings. Then, place the frozen meat and cover it with a burlap-type cloth on top. Next, we need to lay another layer of shavings, leaves or straw on the fabric. Cover the container with a lid and store it in a cold basement.

Preserving meat using birch charcoal

First we need to prepare pure powder from birch coals. This is done very simply.The coals need to be separated from the ash, and then they need to be crushed so that a coarse powder is obtained. Next, we need to clean the resulting powder. To do this, you need to rinse it thoroughly with water several times. Then, the clean coal powder must be dried.

This powder must be poured over previously cleaned and thoroughly dried pieces of meat. The layer of charcoal powder should be at least 20 cm. Carefully ensure that the meat is sprinkled with it on all sides. Then each piece of meat sprinkled with charcoal must be wrapped in a thick, clean cloth and wrapped with twine.

We can store processed meat in a cold room for up to six months. Moreover, with this home storage method, it remains juicy for a very long time, almost like fresh. Before use, the meat must be thoroughly washed to remove charcoal powder.

Also, gutted carcasses of poultry and wild poultry can be stored in coals.

And with the help of coal you can “reanimate” pieces of meat that have already begun to deteriorate.

This is how it is done. We need to thoroughly rinse meat on which mold has already appeared with hot water. And then wash it thoroughly from mold in running cold water. Next, sprinkle it with charcoal powder and wrap it in clean linen, tying it with twine.

In this form, put the meat in a container of suitable size, fill it with water (2 liters per 1 kg of meat) and put it on the fire. It takes a little over two hours to cook the meat. After boiling, we need to free the meat from the fabric and thoroughly rinse it from the coals. Meat processed in this way not only looks fresh, but it is also difficult to distinguish its taste from fresh meat.

Storing broken poultry carcasses in ice “glaze”

To begin with, the recently slaughtered bird must be plucked. It is better to pluck chickens and turkeys while still warm immediately after slaughter. Geese carcasses, on the contrary, must cool for 3-4 hours before plucking.

After plucking, the bird must be gutted. Be sure to make sure that when gutting you do not tear the intestines. If, nevertheless, the contents of the intestines come into contact with poultry meat, it is not recommended to store such a carcass, as it will spoil faster.

After gutting, they must be thoroughly washed under cool running water and wiped dry with a clean cloth.

The wings and heads of the bird need to be folded under the back. To form an ice glaze, it is necessary to briefly dip each carcass in cold water at sub-zero temperatures and then let it freeze. This procedure must be repeated three to four times. When a uniform ice crust has formed on the meat, each carcass should be wrapped in paper. In this form, we put them in boxes filled with hay, sawdust, shavings or straw. The shelf life of carcasses in such an ice “glaze” in a cold room can last the entire winter period.

How to keep meat fresh using various dressings

Meat in sour milk.

To protect meat from spoilage in this way, it is necessary to pour chopped pieces of meat with sour milk, so that the milk is 2 cm above the level of the meat. You can store it this way for 48 to 72 hours.

Meat in vinegar sauce

To prepare such a filling, we need to boil water, add salt, spices, onions and vinegar. We pour the already cooled dressing over the meat, having previously placed it in a clay dish.In such a solution it can be stored in warm weather for about three days; in the cold season of the year, the shelf life of meat in such a filling increases to five days. For a short time (about 24 hours), you can keep the meat fresh simply by wrapping it in a napkin soaked in vinegar.

Meat dressed with vegetable oil and vegetables

It is necessary to prepare a mixture of chopped vegetables and vegetable oil. To ensure that the mixture is homogeneous and the juice is released from the vegetables, you need to thoroughly mix the dressing with your hands. Then we generously rub the pieces of meat with this mixture. Using this method, you can keep meat fresh for no more than 24 hours at a temperature not higher than +8°C.

Meat in honey sauce

To preserve the freshness of meat for a period of time from 48 to 72 hours, we need to place the meat, divided into pieces, into a container filled with liquid bee honey.

Meat in mustard

We need to steam the mustard powder with boiling water without adding sugar or salt to it. This mixture should be generously spread on fresh meat, and then wrapped in a napkin and placed in an uncovered plastic bag. Mustard will help keep it fresh for up to three days.

Preserving meat from spoilage by salting

The salting method is useful if you need to preserve meat for a long period (up to six months).

In order to salt meat, we need to dissolve salt, spices, sugar and saltpeter powder in water. Also, it is necessary to prepare a dry pickling mixture of saltpeter, salt, sugar and seasonings.

Before salting, we need to wash the meat thoroughly, then dry it with a paper towel. If there are bones in the meat, they must be cut out with a knife. Next, we first rub the meat with the prepared dry mixture.After that, we put it in a clay container or a wooden barrel and put a weight on top of the meat. In this form, we leave our workpiece for salting for 48 hours at room temperature.

Then fill the meat with the previously prepared brine and put it in the cold (room with a temperature of +4-+8°C). How long the process of salting meat will last depends on the size of the chopped pieces. For small chunks, it is enough to salt for eight to ten days. And meat cut into large pieces must be salted for fourteen to twenty days. While the salting process is underway, we need to turn the meat every two days. This way it will salt more evenly.

Salted meat should be stored in the same container in which it was salted. To do this, you need to place a barrel of meat in a cold room on a wooden floor sprinkled with sawdust or wood shavings. During storage, this layer (sawdust, shavings) must be periodically replaced with fresh ones.

In a snowy winter, you can simply bury corned beef in barrels in the snow.

Storing smoked meats

In order to keep smoked meats (ribs, sausages, brisket, etc.) fresh for a long time, it is necessary to choose a dry room for storage with good ventilation and a temperature from +4 to +8°C. An example of such a room would be an attic.

Before storing, we need to wipe the soot off the smoked meats with a soft cloth and wrap them in cotton cloth. Or you can put them in a box and cover them with rye chaff.

Remember that if the room you choose to store smoked meats has high humidity, your product may become moldy.

To get rid of unpleasant odor and mold, it is necessary to wash smoked meats with an aqueous solution with a high concentration of salt.Then the meat must be thoroughly dried and greased.

Lard storage

In order to preserve well-salted lard for a long time, you need to put it in a dry, clean container, previously lined with wax paper. When laying, each layer of lard must be sprinkled with coarse table salt. Moreover, the top layer must be salt.

In this form, we send the lard to a cold room for storage.

Preserving meat from spoilage by drying

Dried meat can also be stored for a long time. In order to prepare it, you need to boil lean meat, chopped into small portions (0.2-0.3 kg), in a small amount of water without adding salt until cooked.

Then, we remove the finished boiled meat from the broth with a slotted spoon and place it on a flat surface (cutting board, dish). We need to salt the still wet meat. After it dries, it must be ground in a meat grinder.

Next, on a clean and dry baking sheet, you need to spread the ground meat in a layer of no more than two centimeters. Place the baking sheet in an oven preheated to 80-90°C. The fire in the oven must be turned off. During drying, you need to warm up the oven several times, but the baking sheet with meat must be removed before doing this.

When the dried meat is ready, you can season it with ground black pepper, if desired. Such meat must be stored in a cool, dry place in a tightly sealed container.

I hope that the methods described above will be useful to you and will help you reliably preserve fresh meat at home.