How I Canned the Beans

I read several blogs about canning and grew up in a "canning" community.  I was a teenager before I realized everyone didn't can their own produce, jams, etc.

Hickery Holler Farm is just a great blog period, but I love her no nonsense advice and approach to caring for your family.

Canning Granny has some of the coolest recipes for canning things.  Some of them are a bit out of range with what my family will eat, but who knows things may change.

The Family Homestead, Homemaking on the Homestead  and Crystal's cookbook was one of the first things I found when I really made up mind several years ago that I was going to cook as much from scratch as I could.  I find her recipes, her tips and her can do attitude quite delightful!  My family has loved everything we've tried from her recipes and they've survived my alterations quite well -- not all recipes can handle substitutions...lol.

I've also recently found a new blog that is not on my side bar yet.  Kat's Canning Tidbits
I haven't finished going over the old posts on this one, but so far I like what I'm reading.

I tried the information on the first two blogs when canning my baked beans.  The flavor was great, but the beans were not as tender as I like.  Armed with that knowledge I decided to somewhat follow the information on Crystal's site.

Canning Dried Beans

I made a few changes of course...lol.

1.  I did not season my beans when I cooked them because I am using them in a variety of spicy dishes later.
2.  I only cooked my beans for 1 hour.
3.  I added 1/2 tsp of salt to each quart.  The standard is one, but I am supposed to be watching salt intake...this was my compromise.
4.  I did not drain the beans.  Instead I used a slotted spoon to put them in the prepared jars and then I ladled broth over them.
5.  My 7th jar simply had 1 cup of rinsed dried beans and boiling water (with the salt).

For my area the canning time is 90 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure.