Wild Game Preservation Class Series Is Back for Fall 2022!
Are you interested in learning various methods for processing and preserving your wild game harvests??
Do you hunt or receive game meat from others? Are you confident in your safety practices in the field and kitchen to ensure quality meat for consumption and processing? Do you understand how to operate processing equipment? Is your harvest sent off for processing elsewhere and you're now interested to learn more about in-home processing and preservation?
We continue our series of classes and workshops this fall and plan to expand to other methods as listed below. Topics include basic safety practices (food and equipment safety - starting in the field), prepping, cleaning, and preserving your harvests as well as common ways to process your harvest instead of sending off to be processed elsewhere.
Class Topics
- How to properly clean, cut, and store fresh harvests (virtual, pre-recorded video + short survey)
- This recording and survey are required to be completed before attending any processing classes (unless previously attended)
- Processing loose sausage
- Canning meat or fish (pressure canning)
- Smoking meat or fish
- Processing link sausage
- Proper cleaning and sanitizing of equipment and workstations throughout all classes
Once participants have completed the intro food safety class/short survey and subsequent related class(es), you will be able to reserve a date/time to use the equipment on-site, while the Family & Consumer Sciences agent is also on-site. This will allow community members to gain knowledge and experience in using the tools to properly prepare and preserve your harvests, improve your food security as it relates to meats and fish, decrease the cost of processing harvests elsewhere, and increase your self-confidence to later purchase similar equipment to preserve harvests in your own home. In the long run, purchasing specific items will become more economical over sending harvests out for processing or deciding to not keep all meat due to not knowing how to process it, and then purchasing other meat in grocery stores throughout the year.
You must have completed the associated class to reserve specific equipment on-site. N.C. Cooperative Extension staff will fully clean and sanitize equipment between uses to ensure they are properly cleaned. However, the person who has used it will also be expected to clean the equipment before leaving, in order to practice more before setting out on their own at home.
Contact your Hyde County FCS Agent, CatieJo Black, with questions or to be added to our email listserv for class registration notifications. She can be reached at catiejo_black@ncsu.edu or (252) 926-5263. Be on the lookout for upcoming class registrations!!
We intend to use various types of wild game and seafood this year (deer, bear, goose, fish, duck - as possibilities) based upon availability. Please contact CatieJo directly to inquire about the type of meat planned for specific classes. Note: intended type may change.
