Canning Beans

I know that not everyone wants to can/preserve food. I don't really understand the reasons why . . nor do I need to understand the reasons why . . we're all ok doing things the way we want and no one has to explain anything to anyone.

I don't do it for cost savings, but on most things, there is a big cost savings. I suppose the main reason I do it is because I've done it my entire life. I think it all tastes so much better than anything storebought canned. But, also, I have meat canned in jars. I think I mentioned that the other day I opened a jar of canned beef chunks. There were potatoes and carrots in the jar. I added corn and a can of cannellini beans, a bit more seasoning and some beef broth and it turned into a pot of stew that was delicious.

Hopefully Vince is done picking raspberries so before I have to start dealing with tomatoes, potatoes and okra from the garden, I need to can more beans.

For anyone who has thought about canning but never took the plunge, I think canning dried beans alone makes it worth learning to can and buy the equipment. Besides the home canned ones tasting so much better, I did a little price comparison.

At our Walmart, one pound of dry beans is $1.46. At Azure, it's right at $1.11/pound counting the freight charges if I buy 25 pounds.

Five pounds of dry beans will produce 14 pints of ready to eat cooked, canned beans so that makes each jar a bit less than .40/jar. If using the Walmart dry beans, that makes each jar about .52/jar. If I go to Walmart and buy Bush's canned garbanzo beans, it's $1.48/can. If I buy the Great Value can, it's .86/can.

I can beans using the overnight soak method. I follow Abbey Verigin on YouTube and she does a lot of canning. Her method, shown in this video is pretty much the same one I use. Instead of boiling the beans for 30 minutes, I boil them for 20 minutes. That way, I feel like they're nice and tender and not mushy. There is a method, and Abbey mentions it where you do not soak or boil your beans. That is not an approved canning method and that doesn't bother me. I've used that method before but I find that the beans are never quite as tender as I like for them to be.

My big All American canner will hold 19 pints. My smaller All American canner will hold 10 pints. When I'm canning beans, I will have both of them going.

I will wash and soak all the beans the night before. The next morning I'll take two pots - say the pinto beans and cannellini beans. Rinse them and get them on to boil for 20 minutes. Then I'll get them into jars and in the canner. The pints have to process for 75 minutes. By the time the canner comes up to pressure, cooks, then cools down, I count on each load taking 2-1/2 - 3 hours. I've canned enough and the All American canners are pretty consistent so I will sit down and stitch with the door to the basement garage open so I can hear if the canners stop "jiggling". After about 2 hours, I'll go upstairs and get another two pots of beans going. By the time the canners downstairs are ready to be emptied and re-loaded, I'll have 28 more pints of beans ready to be canned. I do that one last time and that gives us 84 pints of beans on the shelf, ready to pop open, heat and eat. We probably eat 5 jars of beans each week. Since we have a few jars of beans left, and we'll use those before we start using the newly canned beans, I won't have to think about canning beans again until at least October and, by then, everything except maybe the okra should be finished.

I do not have open shelves for storing my canned foods so I store the jars in their original boxes. This week, I'll be canning black beans, cannellini beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, lima beans and last but they're my very favorite - Anasazi beans. Since I will have six types of beans, I will put two jars of each per box so when I grab a box, I will heat up whatever I grab and that way, we won't use up one kind and end up with all of another can left.

Then, in a week or two, I'll make 28 pints of baked beans and that will likely be enough for close to a year.