Add Meat to Your Food Storage with Hamburger Rocks

For some food items, there's really only one way I want to store them, assuming that refrigerating and freezing are no longer an option.  Green beans?  I only want them freeze-dried.  I loathe canned green beans, and dehydrated aren't much better in my book.  If money weren't a consideration, I'd only store freeze-dried strawberries; dehydrated ones are ok, but I like the freeze-dried version better.

But hamburger is an entirely different matter.  There are so many ways to store it for future use, and one of these ways is as hamburger rocks, as they are commonly known on the Internet.  Hamburger rocks are simply very lean hamburger that is cooked and dehydrated for future use in casseroles, skillet dishes, chilis, and soups.  Hamburger rocks drastically reduce meal prep time and perhaps even more importantly in a crisis, the amount of fuel needed to prepare the meal.

Most folks call for using extra lean ground beef.  Honestly, it doesn't matter with the process used here.

Place the ground beef in a frying pan.  (Five pounds of lean beef will yield about one quart of hamburger rocks.)  Sprinkle a pinch of baking soda over each pound of meat.  The baking soda raises the pH, helps the meat brown faster, and improves the texture of the finished meat.

Let the baking soda work its magic for about 15 minutes.  Then brown the beef thoroughly without adding any seasonings. Pour off the grease.  This fat could (and probably should) be saved in the refrigerator for sauteing vegetables or making candles or soap.  Yeah, I think I'd stick with sauteing veggies.  To remove even more fat, rinse the browned beef well with hot water for a few minutes.  This will yield another tablespoon or so of fat.  If you wish to collect this fat also, put the browned hamburger in a wire colander suspended over a large pot. 

Spread the rinsed hamburger on dehydrator trays.  Set the temperature to 155 degrees and dry about 6-8 hours.  Of course, your drying time may differ, depending on the humidity in your home, the efficiency of your dehydrator, and the size of your cooked hamburger rocks before putting them in the dehydrator.

When completely dehydrated, let the hamburger cool and then package for long-term storage.  Some people use Mylar bags and call it good.  But I'm always worried that mice could get to them, so I prefer canning jars.  Because I live in earthquake country and also because there is a possibility of moving in the near future, I worry about canning jars cracking or breaking.  If I had a jar of food that cracked, I'd have to throw all that food away because I'd be too worried about the possibility of a tiny glass shard being in the food.  So to give myself a little peace of mind, before filling each jar, I put a lightweight food storage bag (not a Ziploc, and not a sandwich size, though I guess it would work for smaller jars) in the jar and then fill it with the dehydrated food.  (It should go without saying that this is not done for wet foods or any pressure or water bath canning.)  I lightly twist the top of the bag closed and bend it over to secure it out of the way, put the canning lid on, add an oxygen absorber, and vacuum seal.

How will this additional layer of protection work out?  I have no idea.  I would think it would work perfectly for a situation where the jar merely cracks.  Life experience is necessary for how well they'll do against a jar breaking.  If I have anything to report after our potential move, I'll do it.  If we go through an earthquake, I'll report on that too.  If it happens to be TEOTWAWKI, you're probably on your own. 

To rehydrate your hamburger rocks, allow 1 1/2 cups of water per 3/4 cup of hamburger rocks to make the equivalent of one pound of hamburger.  If using in soup or chili, simply add to the pan with the other ingredients.  If reconstituting for use later in the day, put the hamburger in the refrigerator until ready to use.  Do not let hamburger reconstitute on the counter for more than 30 minutes.  Otherwise, you risk breeding bacteria and food poisoning.

What's the shelf life of these hamburger rocks?  I've never let mine sit on the shelf more than three years.  I'm always concerned about any residual fat (even though I thoroughly rinsed the meat) making the meat go rancid, so I rotate before hitting the three-year mark.  

These hamburger rocks are perfect for taco meat, spaghetti sauce, casseroles, and soup and chili.  They take less space and fewer canning jar lids to preserve for longer term storage.  And there's no risk of losing the meat to a power outage or getting freezer burn.  It's wins all around.

Links to related posts:
Expanded Food Storage--Hamburgers
Beef Stroganoff  and Cheeseburger Macaroni and Cheese 
  16 february 2019