Canning Dry Beans

Getting started here with the promised tutorial. Here's information to consider while I whip up some text to go with the photos I took. More to follow...

This tutorial will hopefully help fellow canners wind their way through the process of canning dry and horticultural beans. The later are referred to as Southern peas and require the same method. My goal is to help you organize the process and explain what makes canning dry beans more tricky than canning other foods. As a disclaimer, I am not a certified extension agent though I follow the directions of the nationally tested recipes. The purpose of this tutorial is to help you can dry beans in an organized manner. Based on my experience, which includes numerous failures though I followed the Ball Book and NCHFP instructions to the letter, I hope this helps others have a more positive beginner experience. Much of the same organizational suggestions can be applied to processing other foods. I will assume you have basic pressure canning knowledge and experience but please feel free to ask if you need further information. I am still learning too. If you have been water bath canning but stepping out into pressure canning I think this will be helpful. I wish I had this information when I started as it would have avoided the family suffering meals of failed bean cannings, batch after batch. Urp!

So why is canning dry beans tricky? The answer is multifaceted. (1)There is no way to know the actual age of the beans in the bag regardless of out date. This equates to not knowing the moisture content which means you will not have an absolutely definitive way to gauge a water-to-bean weight ratio. It's trial and error. Though you can use a successful ratio of water to beans in one batch, I guarantee your subsequent bean cannings come out with varying levels of liquid to beans; maybe more or maybe less. (2) Each bean type has a different make up and starch content. Overall, you will find home canned beans suspended in a more gelatinous base than commercially canned ones. This "gelatin" is actually starch but in some beans, like garbonzos, it is almost clear and in other darker colored beans it is thick and colored like the bean. Good eating and healthy unless you plan on using those beans for salads, or dishes where perfect shape is required. In that case, plan on canning few beans in lots of water to minimize the starchy component. If you plan on using beans in soups, stews, Mexican dishes, etc. then have at it when it comes to maximizing jar space with more beans and less water. (3) The Ball Book and NCHFP amounts are not accurate no matter which bean type I've used. They suggest a five pound start weight of dried beans to yield seven quarts of processed beans. Whoa! Don't attempt that! It's way too excessive for the jar space. You will either blow all your jars with failed seals or be eating beans for months. We are talking about quantity here, not canning technique, so I feel safe in saying you can't cram their suggested amount into seven quarts. This was the number one reason for my beginning bean canning failure as the beans suggested in the instructions expanded and prevented the jars from sealing. You should be able to successfully process 3-4 pounds of dry beans in seven quarts but not more.

Okay, enough for now. coming up with photos and actual step-by-step instructions. Get your beans ready!