Canning Beans

White Bean soup

 Whew! We'll have to get out our gas masks sometime in the future (grin) as I've been on a jag of canning white bean soup and dried beans. I wanted to go about it 2 different ways to see which one I like best. Oh, and this can all be blamed on my lovely cousin, Jill, for bringing me a brimming full sack of banana peppers. As she handed it to me, she started in on the deliciousness of white beans with banana peppers.

For the first batch, I made a white bean soup with, of course, sliced banana peppers, onions, carrots and celery. Once it was cooked up, I canned it in quart jars. The jar on the right has been shaken to mix up the soup. On the left is how it came out of the canner.

Dried White Beans

For the second batch, I followed the directions found on the gardenweb forum, click here to see it, and canned beans not really cooked fully. I took a package each of white beans and pinto beans, sorted, rinsed, and put each in a bowl, covered well with water, and soaked them overnight. The next day, I started with the white beans. They were boiled for 30 minutes and ladled hot into quart jars; I added a small handful of the sliced banana peppers, carrots, celery and onion after the first cup of beans went in. I filled the rest of the jar with beans to the shoulder where it begins to turn in. Then I topped with the boiling water they were cooked in, leaving 1 inch headspace. They were processed for 90 minutes in my pressure canner.

Since my canner is very small and only holds 3 jars, I had to do them in two batches. All in all, I got 5 quarts from a 2-pound bag of white beans. Aren't they pretty! You can see quite a bit of difference between the cooked soup and the dried beans. The cooked beans have a thick soup. The dried beans have a watery soup and have held their shape.

Dried pinto beans

For the third batch, I did the pinto beans. I put them up in pint jars, without adding any additional veggies, and got 7 pints.
















For my own information, following are the steps for canning dried beans adapted from the Ball Blue Book.

1. Sort, stone and rinse dried beans.
2. Cover well with cold water and let stand 12-18 hours in a cool place.
3. Drain, put in pot, cover well with water, bring to boil and boil 30 minutes.
4. Pack hot beans in hot jars, leaving 1-inch head space.
5. Add 1/2 tsp salt to each pint or 1 tsp salt to each quart.
6. Cover with boiling water, leaving 1-inch head space. Remove air, add additional water if needed.
7. Top with lids and rings.
8. Process pints for 75 minutes ad 10 pounds pressure below 1000 ft above sea level.
9. Process quarts for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure below 1000 ft above sea level.