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Okay, I’m late to this party but will add something to this....

>>>>>>. How does canning ground beef work? I’ve heard (read) DW say canning chicken works good. But I’m thinking of having a canner around for if/when my freezer goes out, so I’ll have things like ground beef, roasts, and pork as well as chicken.<<<<<<<<

DW answered your question with a great indepth answer. I just want to add one thing. Since our household is just the two adults I actually can a lot of my things with ground beef as leftovers. I cooked for a whole family and am so used to cooking in large pots I just continue to do so pretty often and then go ahead and follow safe canning procedures for the meat and can up my leftovers for future use. This works really well for me with chili, sphaghetti sauce, stews, etc.

Also that makes the food item in a nice quantity for us when I open the quart or pint of product. So, I can cook the large pot once and then have lots of containers perfect for “just us.”

And I agree with the statement, don’t wait for the freezer to go out. Just can it up now.

On your storage of canned goods. Like DW said again, garage is really about the least likely place to maintain the food well. I don’t use a lot of airconditioning even in Texas but find the food keeps much better in a dark closet. Temperature doesn’t spike so high and keeping it out of light helps also.

Wow - how can you survive in Texas with little use of an A/C?!!

But I guess that's off the track here. ;) I get the part about not storing canned goods in a hot place now. I was just wondering if perhaps canned goods were different from things like beans and grains.

Let's say I want to replace my freezer stored items with canned items. Could I then store them in the garage during one summer and have them be ok? (Cuz the freezer items don't last very long anyway - a few months tops is recommended I think). I was more thinking of semi-short term storage vs long.