Stew meat is a low-acid food. The only research-based way to can it at home is in a pressure canner: 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts, with the pressure set for your altitude and gauge type. A boiling-water canner, oven, or open kettle does not reach the temperature needed to destroy Clostridium botulinum spores.
People searching this usually want one of two things: shelf-stable cubes of beef, venison, pork, or lamb they can turn into stew later, or a finished beef stew in the jar. Those are related jobs with different packing rules. Both use the same processing time. Neither is safe if you shorten the time, drop the pressure, or thicken the jar with flour.
Why pressure canning is required
Meat sits well above pH 4.6, and a sealed jar is a low-oxygen environment. That is the combination in which C. botulinum can grow and produce toxin if the food was not heated hot enough for long enough. Pressure canning is the method that holds the contents at about 240°F. Extension publications state plainly that pressure canning is the only safe, research-based method for meat, poultry, and game.
Boiling-water processing, even for several hours, does not replace a tested pressure process. If a jar of meat was water-bath canned, the safe choice is to discard it. Do not taste it to “check.”
What counts as stew meat for canning
The National Center for Home Food Preservation groups this under strips, cubes, or chunks of bear, beef, lamb, pork, veal, and venison. Stew meat from the store is usually chuck or round cut into cubes. A roast you cube yourself is the same product for canning purposes.
Use chilled, good-quality meat. Trim gristle, bruised spots, and excess fat. Fat left on the meat can climb the jar wall during processing and keep the lid from sealing. Large bones should come out. Small amounts of intramuscular fat are normal and help the finished meat stay moist.
Strong-flavored wild game can be soaked for 1 hour in brine made with 1 tablespoon of salt per quart of water, then rinsed, before packing.
Salt is optional. It is for flavor, not safety. The NCHFP amount is 1 teaspoon per quart or 1/2 teaspoon per pint, added to the jar if you want it.
Hot pack or raw pack
Both packs use the same processing time. Hot pack is the better default, especially with today’s leaner cuts.
Hot pack. Brown or otherwise precook the meat until rare by roasting, stewing, or browning in a small amount of fat. Do not cook it through. Do not dust it with flour. Pack the pieces into hot jars and cover with boiling broth, meat drippings, water, or tomato juice. Tomato juice is particularly useful with game. Leave 1 inch of headspace.
Raw pack. Pack raw pieces into jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Do not add liquid. The official process relies on the meat’s own juices. Lean cuts often do not release enough liquid to cover the pieces, which is why hot pack is preferred for liquid cover and storage quality.
Cube size in the tested directions is about 1½ to 2 inches, or strips ½ to 1 inch thick. Very large chunks heat more slowly. Very fine mince belongs under the ground-meat process, which is hot pack only.
How to can the meat
- Prepare the pressure canner according to the manufacturer. Put the recommended amount of water in the canner, usually 2 to 3 inches. For raw pack, heat that water to about 140°F. For hot pack, heat it to a simmer, about 180°F.
- Wash jars. Keep them hot. Wash lids. Bands only need to be clean.
- Trim the meat. For hot pack, brown it in batches so it sears instead of steaming. For raw pack, leave it raw.
- Pack jars loosely enough that liquid, or the meat’s own juices, can move around the pieces. Leave 1 inch of headspace. Add salt now if you use it.
- For hot pack, cover with boiling liquid, still at 1 inch headspace. Slide a nonmetallic tool around the inside of the jar to release air bubbles, then recheck headspace.
- Wipe rims with a clean damp cloth or a cloth dampened with vinegar. Fat on the rim is a common cause of failed seals.
- Center the lid and tighten the band fingertip-tight. Over-tightening can buckle lids.
- Load the canner, lock the lid, and heat with the vent open until steam escapes in a steady stream. Vent for 10 minutes. Then close the vent or place the weight and bring the canner to pressure.
- Start the timer only when the canner reaches the correct pressure. Hold that pressure steady. If pressure drops below the target, bring it back up and restart the full time.
- When time is done, turn off the heat and let the canner return to zero pressure on its own. Do not rush it with cold water. Wait a few minutes after the pressure is gone, then open the lid away from your face. Let jars rest in the canner about 5 to 10 minutes before lifting them out.
- Cool jars upright, undisturbed, for 12 to 24 hours. Remove bands, check seals, wipe jars, and label them.
Processing time and pressure
Time does not change with altitude. Pressure does. These figures are the USDA recommendations for strips, cubes, or chunks, hot pack or raw pack.
| Jar size | Time | Dial gauge, 0–2,000 ft | Dial gauge, 2,001–4,000 ft | Dial gauge, 4,001–6,000 ft | Dial gauge, 6,001–8,000 ft | Weighted gauge, 0–1,000 ft | Weighted gauge, above 1,000 ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pints | 75 minutes | 11 lb | 12 lb | 13 lb | 14 lb | 10 lb | 15 lb |
| Quarts | 90 minutes | 11 lb | 12 lb | 13 lb | 14 lb | 10 lb | 15 lb |
A weighted-gauge canner uses 10 pounds up to 1,000 feet and 15 pounds above that. It does not have a 12- or 13-pound setting. Dial gauges should be checked for accuracy every year; a gauge that reads low can underprocess the food. Above 8,000 feet, use a tested high-altitude adjustment from your extension service rather than guessing.
Canning finished beef stew is a different pack
If the goal is a meal in the jar, use a tested stew formula rather than inventing one. The widely published USDA-style beef stew uses 4 to 5 pounds of beef cut into 1½-inch cubes, browned in about 1 tablespoon of oil, then combined with 12 cups cubed peeled potatoes, 8 cups sliced carrots, 3 cups chopped celery, and 3 cups chopped onion. Optional seasonings in that formula are about 1½ tablespoons salt, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, and ½ teaspoon pepper. Cover with boiling water, bring the pot to a boil, and pack hot into hot jars with 1 inch of headspace. Process pints 75 minutes and quarts 90 minutes at the same pressures as cubed meat.
That fill-to-1-inch pack is specific to the tested stew. It is not the same rule as the general soup process, which fills jars only halfway with solids and processes pints 60 minutes and quarts 75 minutes. Mixing those two instructions is a common error. A jar packed solid with stew and processed only for the soup time is not the tested product.
Do not add noodles, rice, barley, flour, cornstarch, cream, milk, or other thickeners to either product. Flour used to brown the meat also does not belong in the jar. Thicken the stew in the saucepan after you open it. Dried beans, if used in a soup-style product, must be fully rehydrated first. Pasta and grains belong on the plate, not in the canner, because they change how heat moves through the jar and can absorb the liquid the process depends on.
Peas, mushrooms, wine, and extra vegetables are common in stovetop stew and absent from the tested canning formula. Canning the meat alone, then adding those ingredients when you reheat, keeps the shelf-stable jar inside a tested process.
After the jars cool
A sealed lid is concave and does not flex when pressed. Unsealed jars go in the refrigerator and should be used within a few days, or they can be reprocessed with a new lid within 24 hours using the full time. Refrigerate them in the meantime.
Remove the bands before storage. A band left on can hide a failed seal and can rust onto the lid. Store jars in a cool, dark, dry place. Quality is best within a year. A still-sealed jar can remain safe longer, but texture and flavor decline.
Before serving, look and smell. Spurting liquid, a broken seal, rising bubbles, an unnatural color, or an off odor means discard the jar without tasting. Extension guidance also recommends boiling home-canned meat for 10 minutes before tasting, adding 1 minute for each 1,000 feet above 1,000 feet of elevation. That boil destroys toxin if a jar was underprocessed. It will not fix a jar that already looks spoiled. Heat the meat or stew through, then thicken or season at the table. Canned cubes are already tender. They need only enough cooking to heat the vegetables you add.
Problems that show up after canning
Liquid loss. Some siphoning is common with long meat processes, especially if the pressure fluctuated or the canner was cooled too fast. If the seal is good and at least half the contents stayed covered, the jar is generally considered usable, though the exposed meat may darken. Heavy siphoning with food stuck on the rim often means a weak seal.
Fat on the rim. This is the usual reason a meat jar fails. Trim harder next time and wipe rims with vinegar.
Meat above the liquid in a raw pack. Expected with lean cuts. Hot pack and added boiling broth avoid it.
Cloudy liquid. Often from minerals in the water, excess fat, or sediment. Cloudiness alone is not spoilage. Cloudiness plus odor, gas, or a broken seal is.
Soft vegetables in stew. Potatoes and carrots soften during 75 to 90 minutes at pressure. Cut them in the sizes the tested recipe uses, and do not precook them to tenderness before packing.
Questions people ask after the first batch
Can I can stew meat without a pressure canner? No. Freezing is the alternative if you do not have a pressure canner in good working order.
Can I use broth instead of water? Yes for hot-packed cubes. Broth, drippings, water, and tomato juice are the listed liquids. The tested stew formula is written with boiling water. Homemade broth is fine if it is plain meat broth, not a thickened gravy.
Is pink meat in the jar unsafe? Not by itself. Nitrites naturally present in cured-style reactions, or the way myoglobin responds to heat, can leave a pink color. Judge safety by seal, odor, and whether the tested process was followed.
Can I raw-pack a full stew? The tested beef stew is a hot pack: meat browned, vegetables added, mixture brought to a boil, then jarred. Raw vegetables under raw meat, with no boil and no covering liquid, is not that process.
How much meat fits in a jar? Pack loosely to 1 inch of headspace. A pint commonly takes roughly a pound of cubes and a quart closer to two, depending on how large you cut them and how tightly you settle them. Do not ram the jar full to hit a weight target.