My personal POV, when it comes to home-canning fish and meat, I wonder at the balance between, on the one hand, the energy expended and the deterioration in the nutritional quality of the product being pressure cooked for 110 minutes, or just freezing the stuff. I should think there must be some deterioration in the quality of the essential amino acids within the protein. I did a stint, many years ago, formulating and preparing animal feeds. The cooking time is kept to a minimum for this reason. So, I just freeze it. I once caught several hundred lbs of tuna, and as I like the taste of canned tuna and there is just so much sashimi a guy can eat in a few days, I proceeded to water-bath it for 20 minutes or so to get that flavor, and then froze the jars. I got kinda sick of canned tuna as well

This is the recipe that came with my dehydrator. I've never tried it. My dehydrator says for beef jerky takes 8-10 hours. Mine has two vents, and the top is set on 4, the lower on 3. I let mine dehydrate overnight, and it took about 10 to 11 hours, total, but I used ground meat (see below) DEHYDRATOR BEEF JERKY Most meats are suitable for making jerky, but leaner cuts such as Round, Flank, or Rump are preferred over Chuck and Rib. Pork should be avoided, and Chicken is best and safest when it is cooked first before dehydrating. Have your butcher slice the meat to about 1/4" thick. Cut the slices into 1" strips. Be sure to cut across the grain. Excess fat and gristle should be removed. meats are usually easier to slice if they are partially frozen. There are many spices that may be used for marinating. Salt should be used in moderation as dried meats become much more savory. Of course, the longer the meats are marinated and the more spices are used, the more flavorful the jerky will be. A little lemon juice will help maintain the red color of the meat. Vinegar cuts some of the gamey taste out of wild meats. SOUTHWEST JERKY 1 tsp. pepper 3 tbsp. chili powder 1 tsp. salt 1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper 2 cloves garlic (minced) 2 tsp. cumin 2 lbs. meat sliced Combine ingredients and thoroughly mix together This is a dry marinade so there is no liquid. Sprinkle the spice mixture on the meat slices and work into the grain withi your fingers. Cover and marinate overnight. Dehydrate. This is out of the book too, but I used it with ground round, which I just rolled really flat between wax paper, and froze, then sliced into strips and marinated. I had to put it back into the freezer to partially freeze it to get it to lay out in the dehydrator. I had to use a layer of paper towels to catch the grease, and help it dry. It made a nice skin, but seemed to take forever to get done! I tried it again in the oven at 150, and it did much better. I tried "rolling" some of them, but it just didn't work well. It wouldn't make a skin at all, and it was gooey inside, like it wasn't done. CLASSIC MARINADE (Makes about 1/2 lb. jerky) 3 tbsp. brown sugar 1 tsp. pepper 1 tsp. salt 1 tbsp Liquid Smoke 1/4 c. soy sauce 1/4 c. Worchestershire Sauce 2 lbs. Round or Flank Steak (sliced thin) Mix all marinade ingredients in bowl, pour over meat slices, thoroughly wet all sides of meat and layer in the marinating dish, cover tightly and marinate in fridge overnight. Rotate meat layers every couple of hours if you can. (this is why I did it during the day). Drain othe marinated meat and spread non-overlapping on dehydrator trays. (You can save the marinade for anotehr batch later). **For a chewy texture, slice the meat with the grain, or across the grain for a more tender jerky. Good luck!

Sherry and pk- No,food allergies are not to be taken lightly, which is why sis fibbed that one of her kids had a peanut allergy,to try to get brittle lady to back off. She figured that EVERYONE understands the severity of such ,even if they are to dense to take a subtle hint,or even to understand a blunt "no." I was really upset to hear brittle ladys response to her. "One piece won't kill him?!?!?!?" Really lady? How the hell do you know?!?! Goes to show the widespread nature of this problem. One of her kids does have some food sensitivities,not allergies, which are met with even more of the "oh, just a little won't hurt" garbage from know it all busybodies who have nothing better to do than bake disgusting creations and try to force feed them to kiddos when moms not looking, and then split before it's time to clean up the mess they caused. When this particular nephew of mine was 3 or 4, his paternal grandmother was on woman on a mission. At the time, the doc thought his skin and stomach problems might be caused by the red dye in some commercial food. So sis cut out everything with the dye in it. When her MIL found out, not only did she declare it dumb, she set out to prove it by picking out red mms and skittles and whatever other red candy she could find, and then slipping it to him when she would come visit.(she's very stubborn,one of those know it all hillbilly geniuses) I caught her one day,when I was at sis' house. We were just talking about how his skin and stomach would get better and then suddenly he would break out in a horrible,blistering rash and have diarrhea for days. I kept seeing her bending down right in his face, then I would see him chewing something. So I asked him "whatcha eating baby?" When he told me that his grandma had given him candy, I asked what color,he told me red. Only red. I asked how much, he just said "all day" It all came together then. Kid is fine. Grandma comes for the day. That night, all hell breaks loose. Then it clears up. Grandma comes back, here we go again. She would always be gone before the effects would show,so when she was confronted, she still proclaimed in all her homegrown yokel wisdom that she didn't notice anything wrong with him, and told sis that she thought she was making it up for the sole purpose of depriving her son of the many joys of red candy. For this and other,much more agregious acts she and her husband have committed against their family, BIL and sis have completly cut them out of their lives. They don't even know my niece, their youngest. And it just as well. Poor thing is lactose intolerant, and I could see that heifer feeding her 10 pounds of cheese just out of spite.

I was defrosting/cleaning a chest type freezer that always held zero temps. (not auto defrost !) and found an 8 year old roast at the bottom. It had been properly wrapped and I thought I'd cook it for the dog if it smelled ok. It was so good the dog got none. So if your jerky is still good depends on a couple of factors. Let your nose and taste buds be the guide. Rancidity is easily detected. I would expect in the "old' days jerky would be eaten within 6 months? I've never read of amino acids (protein) disappearing. Good research topic.