Baked Beans

[digitS']

You can allow them to go until frost, if the pods aren't going to split and dump the beans on the ground, I suppose. I don't have trouble with that.

After picking, if the pods aren't completely dry, put them somewhere that they have lots of air circulating around them and preferably under them, also. An old window screen has worked fine for me.

When they are good and dry, toss them on a tarp in the yard and walk on them . . . walk, walk, walk on them. Then you can do 1 of 2 things, or both: climb a ladder with a bucket of beans and chaff and slowly pour out the bucket onto a clean tarp, back on the lawn - you need a breeze to blow the chaff away. Also with a breeze, you can put a few double handfuls on a flat basket and toss them in the air - kind of like flipping Sunday morning pancakes.

Don't worry about getting every bit of pod and stem out of your beans. After you've stomped them, you'll want to wash those beans before cooking, anyway. Whatever is left amongst the beans that shouldn't be there, will likely float to the top and can be discarded.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

The way I do it (not necessarily the right way but the way I do it) is to let the beans dry on the vine, pull the individual pods off the plant, and shell by hand.

It takes a long time but is not very labor intensive to let the pods dry on the vine. By dry, I mean turn brown and hard. One of the risks of this approach is that if you have wet weather, the beans can rot or sprout while you are waiting for them to dry. I have not tried it, but some people pick the pods when they start to turn color, yellow with the varieties I grow (There may be some that change to a different color like maybe Scarlet Runner? Where is Hattie when you need her?), shell them out, and keep them in screen baskets, turning often, to dry them out. I've seen it claimed that the plants will set more beans this way so you can increase your harvest. I don't know if that works or not.

If they are bush beans you can pull the entire plant up which makes it easier to pull the pods off. With pole beans it is picking them just like you do green beans. Either way, I don't find this part of the process too bad unless it has stayed wet, some of the beans are rotting, some are sprouting, and most of the rest still have not dried out. Last year was a pain!!!

The long slow labor intensive part is shelling the individual pods. This is the part that makes buying them dried at the store a viable option. Did I mention it is slow and labor intensive? I don't recommend growing beans as dried beans. I honestly cannot tell the difference in taste or texture and the shelling is labor intensive. I may have mentioned that. I do grow some black beans as dried beans since my wife specifically asks me to. She puts up with a lot from me so I can sacrifice a day or two of shelling beans for her. One thing I do that gives me dried beans is let my green beans mature and dry after I have canned all the green beans I need. I just keep a small area picked for the table and let the rest go. The dried blue lake cook up a lot like great northern dried beans. Yeah, the hulling is still very slow, but there is a big difference to me in taking advantage of a by-product versus planting something with intent. If you can wait until after frost and they are fully dry, you can try Digits' method. Hope it works for you. It's just too wet here in the fall and frost is too late for me to wait for that and I have too any beans to hang to dry for the space. As I said, my way not the right way.

The way I understand it, the commercial boys plant bush beans for use as dried beans, harvest the whole plant mechanically and thresh them. I've also read that you can pull up the whole bush bean plant, hang it up and let it dry, then thresh the beans in a barrel. If you do let them dry on the plant, there are always some that are not fully mature or dry. That's why you have to hang the plant up to let it dry if you are going to threah them.

Unless you dry them really well after you shell them, some will be too damp to store. They will rot, mold, or mildew. I put a measured cup of dried beans in a zip lock type bag and put that in the freezer instead of further drying them. They store well that way. Do not try storing them in the refrigerator. They can absorb moisture there.

Hope this helps.