As a semi-rural Canadian my donors tend to be very intermittent at best. A long while back we started a project on Smoke and Mirrors to find a way to preserve blood, since the most common method at the time was to add blood to wine, which allows it to be stored for a few days, but tastes horrible, most of the time.
The most successful result of the project was a method of freezing blood that was inspired by work done in Cryonic research into how frogs survive the winter.
As the weather starts to cool towards winter Frogs develop high glucose levels in their blood. Study has shown that the glucose prevents crystallization of the cells in the blood, and therefore there are no crystals to puncture the cell walls, thus preserving the viability of the blood.
We tested adding glucose to blood before freezing. It worked quite well allowing the blood to be stored, and remain viable for up to 6 months (this is the longest my personal supplies ever last) The recipe we ended up with is below for your use or interest.
250 ml of blood
5g of glucose (found at beer or wine making shops or baking aisles, as it is also used in icing recipes)
Multiply recipe to accommodate whatever amount of blood you have to freeze
Pour the mixture into ice cube trays and freeze.
Remove cubes from trays and place in double ziplock bags for storage
When you need to use the blood, remove whatever number of cubes you require and thaw. Note: I thaw cubes under a freshly cooked rare steak. The blood then warms and picks up the spices from the steak, making a rather delicious substitute when a donor is not available.
This is a tried and true recipe, used by some of us for years.
10 oz (300 ml) container of frozen food grade animal blood (Non-pasteurized)
6 oz (180 ml) of cold bottled/filtered water.
4 Tablespoons of Sodium Citrate
4 Tablespoons of Dextrose or table sugar.
1 Quart (950 ml) plastic container.
1 Glass measuring cup
1 fine steel mesh 3″ (75 mm) wide strainer.
10 2 oz (60 ml) disposable sauce cups with lids. (Transparent is best for this)
Draw a sink three inches (75 mm) deep of warm water. No hotter than 100 F (38 C). Place tub(s) of frozen blood in water
till thawed. Note: Do not open till it is thawed to minimized oxidation and contamination.
Do all work in your sink.
Take a 1-quart container and mix 6 oz of fridge cold bottled water with 4 tablespoons of sodium citrate, and 2 or 4 tablespoons of dextrose or table sugar. stir till all powder is dissolved.
Strain the blood with a fine strainer into container with the water mix. I strain about 3 oz at a time so I can rinse the strainer under the tap with cold water.
Then I pour it through the strainer again into a glass measuring cup. I get the 2 oz disposable cups and get to work. It will fill 8-9 of them. They go in the freezer.