GRANNY'S KITCHEN: Canning Bacon

 I could not believe my luck when I found bacon on sale at Ramey's. They had a 10# box of bacon on sale for $15! 

Our family LOVES Yoder's Bacon, so I thought I'd give it a try. 

 The Yoder's Bacon comes in a regular sized can and seems to contain the equivalent of 3 # of bacon per little can.  You slide out the parchment paper, unfold it and have about 3 layers of yummy bacon to heat and serve. 

Shooting for that scenario, I laid my bacon out on full sized parchment sheets to fold in half and roll up.  I was thinking large mouth pints (equivalent to Yoder's can), but ended up with large mouth quarts.  Wish I had enough large mouth 1 1/2 pint jars: that would be PERFECT for this project.

 Folded and half and squeezed down into the jar, my parchment paper stuck up a bit, so I just pushed it all down into the jar.

I have no idea how Yoder's gets all that bacon in their cans!!  I was able to get approximately 1# of bacon per quart jar (as opposed to their seemingly 3# per pint jar!! -- I tell you, well worth the price, especially if you love camping!!).

Anyway, this will be so much more worth it because of the great sale price I found!  When this box is complete, I hope they still have some more, so I can do it again!!  This will be soo handy to have camping -- no need to have bacon taking up cooler space! Maybe I'll take my egg powder to make scrambled eggs instead of fresh eggs, too -- save cooler space PLUS, Nicolas only eats scrambled eggs anyway.. maybe he won't notice the difference. LOL

 I decided that I didn't like squishing the parchment paper down into the jars, so for the next jar, I cut the parchment to fit.  The parchment pieces I used were about 6x38.. and that seemed to work just fine!

Rather than folding the bacon, I decided to cut it, too.  Yes, I used scissors!  Worked just fine.

Here are my cuts bacon pieces ready to roll up.  So I just rolled up and put in the jars.  There is space around the bacon in the jars because I couldn't get more in than the size of the lid opening. If I could find more 1 1/2 pints, they are tapered -- the jar is the same size as the wide mouth opening. I'll see what I can come up with.  

 I put a little extra water in the canner because I almost ran dry when I made my liver the other day.  My jars floated -- probably because of all the air space.  If I didn't let my weight on the canner giggle so much, I wouldn't lose as much water.  I do NOT recommend having floating jars -- it could cause them to break.

Cook at 10# pressure for 90 minutes.

 Here are the jars fresh from the canner.  Luckily, I had no broken jars.  They have all sealed and look wonderful!  There is a layer of fat which congeals when cooled.  There is also some 'bacon broth' under the layer of fat, which I think will make a yummy breakfast gravy!