Thread: Making space in the freezer

After my trip to Oregon, my freezer was pretty full of tuna and salmon. We canned quite a bit out there, but I could only bring back a couple of jars in my suitcase due to possibility of breakage. I decided I wanted to can what I had so I found out Strmwalker had a canner he wanted to sell so I picked it up from him on my way to Secession last Friday.
I took a 4 hour class Tuesday at our Clemson(ugh) Extension service on canning so today I took my first shot at it.

The first thing I learned is always have plenty of jars on hand. According to the info I read, a 1/2 pint jar takes about 1 lb. of fish. That sounded high but what do I know? So I had 8.5 lbs. of Tuna and a case of12 jars so I took out a couple of Salmon fillets to fill out the case. It became apparent as I got near the end of the jars I did not have enough jars so a quick trip around the corner to the store netted me a 2nd case.
When I finally finished packing all the jars I had 23 half pints to can and they easily fit in the canner.
I did the processing in the garage, believe me you don't want to do this in the kitchen or your wife will have you sleeping in the dog house for a while until the smell goes away. Fish, remember!!!!!
So everything seemed to go by the book and the jars all look go so I will try some shortly.

I would venture to say home canned fish are better for you cause Lord only knows what all's in those store bought cans..........