Butchering and canning chicken, bottling beer

We got an early start this morning with the chicken butchering. Didn't take long to finish off the last 9 left from yesterday. I got them all cut up, vacuum packed the meat that was going to the freezer and got the stock started. I had about 15 lbs of chicken backs, wing tips, and other bony pieces and fat. I put that in the pressure canner with about 2 cups of celery stalks roughly chopped, 3 medium onions, and about 2 cups of carrots, then added a little bit of salt and pepper and a splash of vinegar and water to almost cover. Then pressure cooked all this for about 2 hours. Strained the stock into a kettle. Luna loves the left over cooked chicken. I had skinned the thighs and legs and deboned the thighs,and put them in the jars. Ladled the stock over the chicken and filled 5 more jars of just stock with the 7 quarts of chicken. Processed this for 90 minutes at 10 lb pressure. So now  I have a good supply of canned chicken and stock. So I have been outside or in the summer kitchen all day long. I am so glad they put an air conditioner in my lil summer kitchen or the heat would be unbearable in there. The heat and humidity here has been terrible. Then we got a pretty good storm this evening too. I had  my laptop out there and could surf the net and wait on things to can.
The guys went to Richmond today to pick up a free washer that Jason found on freecycle and brought it home. I had them stop at walmart and pick up some more canning jars for me. I had them get 10 dozen regular quarts and 5 dozen wide mouth quarts. I don't have many jars left that are empty for some reason. So now I will sure have enough jars for canning green beans and tomato products. The10 dozen pints I bought  a couple weeks ago will be used to can corn and other jams and jellies. I had also ask them to see if Lowes had any 100 lb propane cylinders in stock and they did, so they got 2 of those. One will be used for propane for my summer kitchen and 1 for a propane heater for back up heat here in the house. Cause we know its no fun waking up with the power off and it near zero outside with total electric heat. A bigger tank will be better for the summer kitchen, wont be as likely to run out in the middle of canning something that requires a long pressure canning time. It would sure suck to get within a few minutes of being done with, say a meat, and run out and lose pressure below 10 lb and have to start the counting over again.
It was time this evening to bottle the beer that we had started brewing a couple weeks ago. So Rodger and Jason set about doing that. I think it is kinda cool to make you own beer.

 
This was our first batch so we will let you know later how it turns out. It has to sit in the bottles for 2 weeks before you drink it for it to be at its best. We shall see. But no matter, they wanted to go ahead and start another batch. So the brew tank is on the counter doing its thing.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella