Now that things are really calming down around here—the fall harvest has nearly all been processed, the holiday season is fully over, and we’re now in that lull between mid-winter and the warming of spring—I’m getting to the task of pressure canning black beans.
We’ve been experimenting with growing beans the last few years. We’ve had kidney beans, black beans, and scarlet runner beans. These are all the kind where you let them dry in the pod, shell them, and let them dry more—we don’t grow the fully-edible kind like green beans.
While our beans are fully dry and in jars in our food storage room and, in a sense, were already processed and preserved, they weren’t exactly dinner-friendly. Working with dried beans takes planning ahead as you need an overnight soak to rehydrate them. While you can do a quick soak in a much shorter time, it still requires a considerable time investment, and the quick soak method doesn’t produce quite as nice results as the overnight soak.
Besides, what I really want are jars of fully cooked beans that I can just pop open and dump in dinner at a moment’s notice. Indeed, shortly after canning a batch of beans, we felt we needed to add protein to a potato soup and added a jar of beans about ten minutes before serving.
If you’re not a gardener but you like food projects, you can buy dried beans from the store at very cheap prices and do up these pressure canned jars. That allows you to control the salt level or even do a mix of your favourite kinds of beans in one jar.
While I pressure canned black beans, this process and recipe works for any dried bean.
Preparing the beans
Before doing anything, carefully sort through the beans to ensure there are no stones, pebbles, or clumps of dirt hiding in there. This can be fairly common, especially with smaller beans.
The first step is to rehydrate the beans, either with an overnight soak or the quick soak method.
I much prefer an overnight soak. While it takes some planning since you have to start the day before, it’s very much a “set it up and leave it” soak, which I like. The overnight soak can also reduce the amount of skin-splitting on beans, if this is a concern. If you experience digestive upset from beans, the overnight soak can also reduce the likelihood of this happening.
Overnight soak
Put the dried beans in a very large pot and add 10 cups of water for every pound of beans. For this full canner load of beans, I did up 3.25 pounds of dried beans, which meant 33 cups of water. I like to give it a little stir to see if anything floats to the top so I can scoop it off (since home processing of beans sometimes means I have some dried plant detritus mixed in).
The next day, drain the beans, give them a good rinse, and then move ahead to the cooking stage.
Quick-soak method
This also uses a large pot and the same ratio of beans to water. For every pound of beans in your pot, add 10 cups of water. Bring it all to a boil over medium-high heat and let boil for two minutes, then remove from heat and let sit for an hour
Afterward, drain the beans, give them a good rinse, and the move ahead to the cooking stage.
Cook the beans
Put the beans back in your large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and let boil for 30 minutes.
While the beans are boiling, prepare your pressure canner to manufacturer specifications and prepare your jars.
Pressure canning black beans
When beans have cooked for thirty minutes, remove from heat and use a slotted spoon to scoop beans into mason jars. You can use pint or quart, but I like to use half-pint because that’s a more reasonable serving of beans for us. (You can always go with smaller jars for canning, but never larger.)
Leave a headspace of one inch. Don’t discard the water.
This is optional, but you can add non-iodized salt to your jars—1/4 tsp per half pint jar, 1/2 tsp per pint jar, or 1 tsp per quart jar.
Then, using a ladle, scoop out the bean water and add to the jars, maintaining the one-inch headspace. If you run out of bean water (as I did), freshly boiled water can be used instead.
Debubble, adjust headspace, wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar, and close with two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
Process jars in your pressure canner at 10 psi weighted gauge (or 11 psi for dial gauge) for 75 minutes for pints (or half pints) or 90 minutes for quarts. Adjust for elevation if necessary—for elevations above 1,001 feet use 15 psi weighted gauge; for dial gauge use 11 psi for 1,001-2,000ft, 12 psi for 2,001-4,000ft, 13 pis for 4,001-6,000, 14 psi for 6,001-8000ft, and 15 psi for 8,001-10,000ft.
Once canner has fully cooled and depressurized as per manufacturer directions, carefully remove jars from canner and place on a thick towel on the counter or a table. Leave undisturbed overnight and check them in the morning; sealed jars can be stored at room temperature for a year or so, unsealed jars should be put in the fridge and consumed promptly.
Using canned beans
Use pressure canned canned black beans in the exact same way as you’d use canned black beans from the grocery store.
The week after I canned these black beans, I had made up a batch of potato soup. We felt it needed a bit of protein added, so we dumped in a can of beans, and it was perfect.
Today, I’m planning some crockpot chili, and it calls for a couple cans of black beans, so I’ll be using my home-canned ones.
Pressure Canned Black Beans
Equipment
- Pressure Canner
- Mason Jars, quart size or smaller
Ingredients
- Black Beans
- Salt
- Water
Instructions
Soaking Beans
- Sort through beans to remove any pebbles, dirt clumps, or plant detritus.
- Beans must be soaked, either overnight or via the quick soak method. Use 10 cups of water per pound of beans. A full canner load is 3.25 pounds and would use 33 cups of water.Overnight soakPlace beans and water in a large pot or bowl and let sit overnight. The next day, drain and rinse beans.Quick-soakPlace beans and water in a large pot. Bring water to boil over medium-high heat and let boil for two minutes. Remove from heat and let beans soak for one hour.
Cooking Beans
- Put beans in a large pot and cover with fresh water. Heat beans over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Let boil for 30 minutes.
- While beans are cooking, prepare pressure canner as per manufacturer directions.
Canning Beans
- Using a slotted spoon, fill jars (quarts, pints, or half-pints) with beans to one inch headspace. Reserve bean water.
- Optional: Add 1 tsp non-iodized salt to each quart jar, ½ tsp to each pint jar, or ¼ tsp to each half-pint jar.
- Top off with bean water, maintaining one inch headspace. If you don't have enough bean water, you can use freshly-boiled water.
- Debubble, adjust headspace, wipe jar rims with a paper towel wetted with white vinegar, and attach two-part lids to fingertip tightness.
- Load into pressure canner and heat and pressurize as per manufacturer directions. Process at 10 psi with a weighted gauge or 11 psi with a dial gauge for 90 minutes for quarts and 75 minutes for pints or half-pints. Adjust for elevation if necessary (see note).
- When processed, allow canner to cool and depressurize as per manufacturer directions. When safe, carefully remove lid and with a jar lifter remove jars and place them on a thick towel on a counter or table and let sit overnight. In the morning, check that jars have sealed; sealed jars can be kept at room temperature for approximately a year before quality starts to degrade, while unsealed jars should be refrigerated and consumed promptly.
Notes
1,001 and above – 15 psi Dial Gauge 0-2,000 ft – 11 psi
2,001-4,000 ft – 12 psi
4,001-6,000 ft – 13 psi
6,001-8,000 ft – 14 psi
8,001-10,000 ft – 15 psi
Awesome! I can’t wait to see how the chili turns out 🙂
I’m looking forward to it — should be tasty!