Beans and grains

[Freetobeme]

Does anyone know if dry beans, grains, etc. can be canned? I was thinking that if they could be canned in perhaps the waterbath canner, it would vacuum seal the jars and prevent weevil infestations. (The heat and lack of oxygen would do in any nasty little bug eggs that might have come with the food.)

[Guest Guest]

I believe not, as far as actual canning goes.

 

That said, you can freeze your beans and grains to kill off pests, *then* store them in jars. (Gotta let them thaw out & no moisture in the jars, of course.)

 

Or I believe some of them can be baked at a very low heat (but high enough to kill pests), then store.

 

I'll have to do some looking...

 

 

[gardnmom]

http://waltonfeed.com/self/upack/index.html

In one experiment, soft wheat with a moisture content of 12.3 percent was placed in size 303 metal cans with 8 live powder post beetles. Four cans were treated by one of each of the following methods: carbon dioxide (dry ice), spearmint gum, freezing, bay leaf, and diatomacious earth. The cans were stored at 70 degrees Fahrenheit plus or minus 5 degrees. At the end of the storage period, oxygen content of the cans was determined, Cans were opened and the number of insects were counted and the amount of damage rated subjectively. Germination of the wheat was tested. The wheat was cleaned, ground to whole wheat flour and made into bread rolls, The rolls were evaluated by a taste panel.

[Leia]

I should start by saying that I have not yet tried canning dried beans. I did, however, just print this recipe off a few days ago!

 

dried kidney beans

 

I would think you could look some others up online (I haven't gotten that far :-))

 

If you are asking if you could can them still dry (I am thinking that's what you are asking in your post??), then I would say no. But you could definitely soak them and THEN can them, as far as I can tell. I don't know what the water bath time would be, but it would have to be an incredibly long time (3+ hours) and you probably couldn't even find a time reference for beans since they are no longer canned *properly* in water baths, only pressure canned because they are low acid.

 

Hope that helps! I am sure someone here has canned beans before and could help you out more! I wish I had tried this since I had printed this kidney bean recipe, but I had other things I needed to can first

Shawna

 

 

OK, I did some poking around and found these two sites that may help you out.

 

canning dried beans

 

Mother Earth News...dried beans

 

HTH!!

Shawna