> PS did you actually weigh the kraut or just guesstimate. Dave, I am very careful to weigh & record ingredients when I process and/or ferment stuff. Just another one of my quirks... :) That was a great question though & glad to see it asked because sometimes to see instructions such as "add two cups chopped this or that" can be rather imprecise in my opinion. Back when I was very active in sharing seeds & other stuff I bought a postal scale for precisely weighing pkts sent to foreign countries to escape customs forms by keeping less than an ounce. Very handy now for weighing ingredients up to 10 lbs. Thanks for reply!

I've canned meat, game and fish, but never cooked without liquid. I have several Extension booklets on canning meat, poultry and game. It seems the preferred strategy is to can cooked meat (150 degrees internal temp) covered with broth or strained meat juices. I didn't find anything other than what you did regarding canning cooked meat without water or broth. Apparently (and you may have read this too) the broth promotes heat distribution and results in a better product. Sorry not to be more helpful. If you find something out there different, I hope you post it. It would definitely be useful information. Carol

Okay, I finally did it. My husband brought home some more catfish yesterday. Per the instructions, the fish were gutted and bled within 2 hours of being caught (actually was done immediately). They were stored on ice until he got them home. He filleted them and handed them over to me. I washed them again and drained them. I pressure canned them per NCHFP instructions for pint jars. The fish are canned raw pack into hot jars. I filled the jars with fish cut into approximately 3-1/2" strips. I left 1" of head space. No liquid was added. I added approximately 1/8 tsp of salt per jar, much less than the listed amount, which is optional anyway. The processing time was 100 minutes. I processed only 4 pints because I didn't know if I would like the catfish pressure canned. After processing was complete and jars removed, I had one jar with a seal failure, which I know was related to the lid itself. It was the only one left from an old batch I uncovered in the pantry and it just didn't take. I refrigerated that jar as soon as I discovered it this morning, approximately 9 hours after being removed from the canner. I cooked it up in a recipe for lunch today. I used a recipe for fish patties that was labeled "if you like crab cakes, you'll love this recipe." It was only for "inspiration" and what I did was mix the entire jar of fish (drained of the liquid) with about a cup (maybe a little more) of cracker crumbs, a squirt of mustard, mayo, some lime juice, about 1/3cup each of minced bell pepper and onion, 1 clove of garlic, 1 egg, cajun seasoning, and some freshly picked and chopped cilantro. I formed patties and cooked over medium heat in about 1-2 TBS of oil in a large skillet. When they were golden brown on each side and thoroughly cooked, I removed from the skillet. They are actually quite good. I would repeat this recipe. Now, for the negatives: I was forewarned by several official extension agency publications that the texture of the fish might not be satisfactory after canning this type of fish. The catfish did not come out flaky. In the jar, it looks like it remains in the cut slabs, but it is extremely mushy, and becomes almost paste-like as soon as you start stirring it up. This texture did not affect the recipe I used at all, but I can't see it working for most other recipes. I thought it might be usable for casseroles (like a tuna-like casserole), but I don't think I would like it. I will try it for a tuna-like salad sandwich spread, but I don't know how that will turn out yet. I'm not sure what other recipes this might work for. I thought if all the recipes were failures at the taste-test, I would use it for cat food. However, my vet has recommended that I not feed fish-flavored cat food to my cat due to a bladder ailment. He says fish cat food is processed with the fish bones, which provides too many minerals which form crystals in his bladder (similar to kidney stones in people). I will ask if that is still a problem if the fish is processed without bones, but for now, I'll avoid canning it for cat food. All in all, I think it will work just fine for fish patties and I would probably do it again. It is very, very, very easy. It was easier than bagging up in individual bags for the freezer. The only thing time-consuming about it was monitoring the canner processing time. The only other thing that occurred is that the jars are not full. I did not have any siphoning. I probably did not put enough fish in the jars. I just dropped pieces of fish in until it came up to the 1" head space. I didn't try to push them down or fit any more in. When processing was over, the self-made liquid covers the fish, but the jars are a little less than 2/3 full. Jill in Texas

I use mine for stuff that normally needs hours of cooking, so that exact timing isn't needed. For example, if I'm making oxtail or beef shank, it doesn't make a difference if I pressure cook it for 1 h or 1 h 15 m, because normally it doesn't make a difference if you cook it (w/o pressure cooker) for 3 h or 3 h 45 m. There is occasionally stuff that can be cooked in a shorter time, but where the exact time still doesn't matter. An example is making a quickie chicken stock, brown the carcass and add water + veg, then high pressure for 20 m (1 h w/o pressure) - but if I get distracted so it turns out to be 30 m (1 h 30 m w/o pressure), it doesn't matter. I recall once investigating the feasibility of a temperature probe that could be placed into meat inside the PC, and transmit a reading to a gauge outside the PC. I didn't find anything.