So yesterday I posted a a piece about canning up dried beans and a reader correctly pointed out that USDA and UGeorgia both say that dried beans must be precooked to ensure safe canning as you can’t be sure the dried beans will reach a high enough temperature otherwise. I guess this makes sense and it isn’t that hard to pre cook dried beans so I will stand corrected and move on. I ran into a similar problem with canned chocolate sauce. I found directions for making it and when I went to pull them off the computer the directions had been removed. I did find two other sites with recipes. It turns out that, since chocolate is low acid you need to pressure can it. I have no idea what will happen to chocolate sauce that’s pressure cooked. I can see it tasting burned. I planned to give it a try but then it occurred to me that I was making my life harder for no pay off. I can stock up on all the cocoa and sugar I like I want and make the sauce fresh every few months as it holds fine in the refrigerator. I have plenty to do without making work for myself.
There are directions all over the internet for canned butter and cheese and neither of these low acid foods should be water bathed canned. One of the things I appreciate about doing this blog is that I know I’ll be challenged if I make an error and we all benefit from that. I do wish that the go-to canning books like Ball and So Easy To Preserve would add a page about canning myths in their next editions. It would save a lot of time and searching on-line. Tonight I’m making beans and brats and calling it a day. Next week I’ll can more beans but I’ll cook them first.
October 16, 2012 at 10:58 am
Did you figure out the cost per pint jar of canning your own? I just put mine in a crock pot in the morning and they are ready for dinner. Wondered if it is worth it in time and money to can.
October 16, 2012 at 11:10 am
The cost for organic beans is $.26 for a pint but that’s not counting the cost of the sauce (I grew the tomatoes and canned them here). the mustartd (negligible), the molassas (free next time as I’ll use home processed maple syrup) or the bit of brown sugar. I also don’t count the jars or lids as they are all reusable. there’s the energy. of course. A pint is just about right for us for one meal if we have no company.
October 16, 2012 at 9:01 pm
There’s a recipe for chocolate raspberry sauce in the Bernardine canning book that sounds pretty yummy. I can give it to you if you want. Maybe it’ll make sense to keep a couple cases of commercial canned beans for hydro outages and just learn how to use the pressure cooker hubby bought me last year
October 16, 2012 at 10:43 pm
Chocolate raspberry sauce sounds awesome!
October 18, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Do the beans have to be pre-cooked all the way, or just soaked overnight?
October 19, 2012 at 12:23 pm
The USDA “Complete Guide to Home Canning”, Chapter 4 (on vegetables) has three separate listings: “Beans or Peas, shelled, dried”, “Beans, baked” and “Beans, dry, with tomato or molasses sauce”. Google to get the complete info.
But in general, YES, after soaking the beans are bascially pre-cooked by boiling or baking (depending on the recipe), then placed in the jars for processing.
I know, I know, too many steps…I personally wish it was easier, too! But as I said earlier, I am going to study how to use my pressure cooker/canner for the pre-cooking steps, which should save some time. Happy fall everyone!
October 20, 2012 at 3:59 am
Marija – According to the USDA instructions Cindy has referenced, for plain beans, the should be soaked (overnight or quick soaked) and boiled for 30 minutes before proceeding. Their baked bean recipe calls for baking the soaked beans for 4-5 hours, and the beans in tomato or molasses sauce call for soaking, but does not say anything about a cooking time afterwards. So it sounds like the answer to your question is that yes, the beans have to be cooked, but no, not all the way.
October 21, 2012 at 11:05 am
Thanks everyone! If this helps anyone, this is how I generally cook dried beans: I boil water and put in the beans, turn off the stove, cover, and soak them overnight. The next day I change the water and cook them all day in the crockpot while I’m at work. I do big batches and then freeze them. It’s really easy. I like the idea of canning them, so I may get a couple of crockpots going and do up a big batch.
October 21, 2012 at 11:22 am
Kathy, we saw you last night on that prepper TV show! I was so happy to see the farm and your family! And you sounded perfectly reasonable about guns to this Buddhist prepper!
October 23, 2012 at 5:16 am
Here in the UK we do not have the tradition of bean prepping that you do in the US. I am curious to know what the soaking, pre-cookig, processing and canning does to the nutritional value of the beans?
My next purchase will be a dehydrator (again – not common in the UK). I am learning quite a bit from your blog Kathy – thank you!
October 29, 2012 at 11:03 am
After getting frustrated last year with beans that were still hard after cooking, then Googling up a storm, I stumbled onto the technique of brining them. Up until I tried it, I believed the advice I’d always heard about not adding salt until later in the process. Brining them for 12 to 24 hours in a solution of 6T of Kosher salt (or 3T of regular salt) per gallon of water did wonders. Beans were velvety in texture, retained their shape and cooked up much faster. After draining off the brine and rinsing them, I didn’t add more salt (we don’t use a lot of it) and they were perfect – not salty at all.
Several months prior I’d watched a demonstration using the method you – and the USDA – warn against: pressure canning dry beans without cooking first. Being new to canning, I didn’t realize there could be a problem with it. But before I’d ever gotten around to trying it I found the wonders of brining and thought, “Why not combine the two?”
I rinsed and brined black beans, rinsed the brine off, put the beans in jars, covered with hot water, then pressure canned the brined beans without cooking them first. I did all this and we ate through them in the following months with no problem, and without knowing that there could have been. However, given my experience with the results of brining I have to say that if the beans are sufficiently brined, I feel sure they’re sufficiently soft for water and heat to get them to the proper temperature, and I’m inclined to try it again.
I would like to read the official UGA explanation of the hows and whys on canning from dry and see if I’m perhaps mitigating any potential problems by brining first or if I’m just playing Russian – er, canning? – roulette. I’m coming up empty Googling because I can’t seem to hit a combination of words that brings up canning dried beans without cooking before a million other bean and general canning results. Anybody?