Ian33568
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Collecting your own dried beansI have just spent a lovely hour on the terrace splitting the pods of dried beans, first time this year and will probably only get around 5 kilos. Although very time consuming, it will be a good feeling next time we have a bean salad or paté made with our own beans.
Does anyone else?
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gz
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I'll just be saving runner bean seed this year- everyone had sold out of Brown Dutch this year so I'm ordering earlier next!!
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Sally
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Mine are still on the plant in the polytunnel..... perhaps tomorrow.
I grew runner beans and french beans - and really preferred the taste of the runners when green. So I left all the french beans to mature. They are the Cherokee Trail of Tears variety from Real Seeds. The pods are now a deep purple.
I've left a few runners to mature also as they don't cross pollinate with french beans and I can plant them next year.
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Green Rosie
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5kgs sounds like a decent harvest to me. I'm waiting for some French beans to dry (the ones I forgot to harvest fresh) amd may have enough for the equivalent of a couple of tins of baked beans!
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ksia
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Dried beans gathered: barloto, la victoire, butter, yin-yang, runners. Pea beans still drying on the plant.
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Green Rosie
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Slight aside but I must remember the herbs that are in the drier 
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Behemoth
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I used to do this but the last three summers have been very disappointing for beans.
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VM
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Being in Manchester rather than Spain, we've not managed to dry beans as yet - autumns have just been too wet / cold.
However we leave almost all our runner beans to turn into beans for podding and then we freeze them - I'd rather dry them so as to be less reliant on freezer, but have to say the frozen ones have been delicious in past years.
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wellington womble
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borlottis have done well, although I''ll probably freeze rather than dry, as they cook quicker. Yum.
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Millymollymandy
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I'm leaving runner bean pods on the plant for the first time but when do I harvest them for the beans inside? Do they go yellow and dried out like borlotti beans? They don't seem to be doing anything except staying green!  The plants themselves are over in the sense that they haven't produced anything new to crop for the last month.
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Ian33568
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| Millymollymandy wrote: | | I'm leaving runner bean pods on the plant for the first time but when do I harvest them for the beans inside? Do they go yellow and dried out like borlotti beans? They don't seem to be doing anything except staying green! The plants themselves are over in the sense that they haven't produced anything new to crop for the last month. |
We left them on the plant for as long as possible - yes they do dry and go yellowish - (weather depending), we then stripped the leaves and hung the plants for a few days to dry further - stripped the pods and left the beans to dry. Novices here too but followed what the locals do and it has been successful. A few pods take longer to dry but we have left those for later.
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Millymollymandy
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Cheers! I see you are in Spain so probably a lot hotter than Brittany but I'll wait and see what happens - though frosts could come before they turn yellow!  But it's only a bit of an experiment so it doesn't really matter as I have plenty of runner bean seeds.
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Ian33568
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Northern Spain so not much warmer than where you are at this time of year I wouldn't think - good luck with them.
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Nanny
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interesting thread
would it work with my peas that i have left on the plant as well and can i pick the pods, put them in the airing cupboard to dry out and then strip them off?
this is wales and they aren't going to dry on the plants outside
we are still eating our runner beans here but they mature much later up here on the mountain
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Ian33568
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Hi Nanny - can't see why not - give it a go and let us know . can't get dried peas here so that would be something for us to try next year - I love mushy peas 
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Blue Peter
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I've thought about growing beans for drying, but I wonder about how much energy it takes to cook dried beans. I would have thought that it was far more efficient to cook on an industrial scale, and tinned beans do seem very cheap. Has anyone looked into it?
Peter.
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Behemoth
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Large scale cooking will be more efficient but there are more steps to get it to your door:
Transport, store, cook, can, storage, transport, storage, distribute, store/sales, transport, home.
And I find them quite expensive but I'm a cheapskate.
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Gra
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Be careful of leaving peas to dry on the plant, I did this once and came back and they were all gone - I assume mice!
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Slim
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| Blue Peter wrote: | I've thought about growing beans for drying, but I wonder about how much energy it takes to cook dried beans. I would have thought that it was far more efficient to cook on an industrial scale, and tinned beans do seem very cheap. Has anyone looked into it?
Peter. |
When you are cooking your own dry beans, they cook much faster than dry beans from the store, as those are usually a couple years old, and much drier. Add to this the ease of cooking them after an overnight soak, and you're really not talking about much cooking time. I have a friend who always cooks his beans with a pressure cooker, it's super fast.
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Slim
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Re: Collecting your own dried beans | Ian33568 wrote: | I have just spent a lovely hour on the terrace splitting the pods of dried beans, first time this year and will probably only get around 5 kilos. Although very time consuming, it will be a good feeling next time we have a bean salad or paté made with our own beans.
Does anyone else? |
I used to split bean pods by hand, until I started doing enough beans that it became too frustrating and time consuming, and I decided I needed an easier way. After a quick look at how folks used to do it, I felt sheepish not thinking to thresh them earlier. Now I just throw all the dry pods into a bag, and either swing that bag into something hard repeatedly, or if it's really large, hang it from a tree and smack it with something like a broomstick. The pods split right open if thoroughly dried, and the beans fall to the bottom of the bag. You can pull out the empty pods from the top, or if you are doing a lot of beans you can use a burlap sack with a hole in the bottom that has been tied up, then you can just open the bottom and let the beans fall out, leaving you with a sack full of dried pods for the compost, etc...
It can be worthwhile to glance through the leftover pods as some beans cling tenaciously to their sleepingbags.
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ksia
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Re: Collecting your own dried beans | Slim wrote: |
I used to split bean pods by hand, until I started doing enough beans that it became too frustrating and time consuming, and I decided I needed an easier way. After a quick look at how folks used to do it, I felt sheepish not thinking to thresh them earlier. Now I just throw all the dry pods into a bag, and either swing that bag into something hard repeatedly, or if it's really large, hang it from a tree and smack it with something like a broomstick. The pods split right open if thoroughly dried, and the beans fall to the bottom of the bag. You can pull out the empty pods from the top, or if you are doing a lot of beans you can use a burlap sack with a hole in the bottom that has been tied up, then you can just open the bottom and let the beans fall out, leaving you with a sack full of dried pods for the compost, etc...
It can be worthwhile to glance through the leftover pods as some beans cling tenaciously to their sleepingbags. |
Interesting tip there. Ta Slim.
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Ian33568
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Re: Collecting your own dried beans | Slim wrote: | | Ian33568 wrote: | I have just spent a lovely hour on the terrace splitting the pods of dried beans, first time this year and will probably only get around 5 kilos. Although very time consuming, it will be a good feeling next time we have a bean salad or paté made with our own beans.
Does anyone else? |
I used to split bean pods by hand, until I started doing enough beans that it became too frustrating and time consuming, and I decided I needed an easier way. After a quick look at how folks used to do it, I felt sheepish not thinking to thresh them earlier. Now I just throw all the dry pods into a bag, and either swing that bag into something hard repeatedly, or if it's really large, hang it from a tree and smack it with something like a broomstick. The pods split right open if thoroughly dried, and the beans fall to the bottom of the bag. You can pull out the empty pods from the top, or if you are doing a lot of beans you can use a burlap sack with a hole in the bottom that has been tied up, then you can just open the bottom and let the beans fall out, leaving you with a sack full of dried pods for the compost, etc...
It can be worthwhile to glance through the leftover pods as some beans cling tenaciously to their sleepingbags. |
Now you tell me I would imagine that is very therapeutic as well
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Nanny
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i hsall have to give my dried veg a go then even if it is for seed...
i grow alderman peas so the mice might have left the pods alone as they are some 6 ft off the ground.....
tomorrow's gardening job...
pick
stick in airing cupboard
wait
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Gra
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Runner beans might not go nice and dry outside before the autumn rains come but just pick the ones that have well developed beans in them, take the beans out and set them out to dry inside.
A note of warning, I left Broad beans and peas on the plants to dry off, in order to save the seed, only to go back after they started to turn brown and find them all gone - I assume mice got them. Sometimes its better to pick them still a bit green and dry them indoors.
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wellington womble
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I've left it too long to harvest some of my borlottis, and they are well on the way being dried. How will I know when they are dry enough to pack into jars without going mouldy, and how do I cook them afterwards? And overnight soak and a an hour in a stew is my usual method - is this OK for borlottis
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Millymollymandy
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I don't know about the cooking them but I would do a fast boil for 10 mins to be on the safe side (but I would also google to check). It's my first year with dried borlottis and I shelled them into a bowl which I left on the kitchen table for several weeks, turning them occasionally. Now they're packed into airtight containers and I hope for the best. Just playing it by ear really!
Must go and pick those runners!
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Treacodactyl
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That's what we do with our home grown dried beans, fast boil for 10 mins, change water and then cook 'till soft. As for drying we dry them on the plants for as long as possible, keeping and eye on them if it's wet as the pods can go mouldy, and then pick, shell and leave in bowls to dry. We don't grow enough to store, as we use quite a few.
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loopy
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i'm getting confused now...i grew a lot of runner bean plants this year, and stopped picking them at the start of september as i wanted to try to harvest beans for seed for next years crop and also to try drying the surplus for stews etc....but i was told that i should not take the beans out of the "pods" until the pods were papery....now as i live in england we have not had enough hot weather, they are big and fat and still green so should i ...
1) harvest the beans into bowls as some people have mentioned on here? (we tried picking a couple last week but when they dried they shrunk significantly and went very wrinkly and didn't look at all like the size/appearance of the shop bought bean seeds that i started the crop with)
2) pull the pods off the plants and store them in a greenhouse or similiar? or store them indoors on window ledges? (until they go papery?)
3) i have an electric dehydrater...so could put the bean seeds in there - would speeding up the drying process help? or would this be too warm? its the italian one, nova something? from ascotts....
4) any other ideas???
appreciate any helpful suggestions as expect frosts within the next 2 weeks here...
thanks L
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Treacodactyl
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Another idea, depending on how many you have, would be to pick, shell, cook for a few mins, and freeze in portions.
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loopy
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if i could freeze them i would...but the 503 litre chest freezer is already full of sliced runner beans, courgettes, mange tout, and about half a pig....and also have 2 other full freezers now from produce....hence why i stopped picking the runners about 6 weeks ago lol ....having made lots of bean/chilli chutney the only other thing left is to dry the remainder....but no way they will go papery now so need to know what i should do for the best before the frosts come!
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ksia
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loopy - I think as long as they're not too wet, I'd pick them pod and all and leave the whole lot to dry somewhere (greenhouse or sunny windowsill fine), to get to the papery stage. careful if they're very damp though as they'll easily go moldy.
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Ian33568
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| Slim wrote: | | Blue Peter wrote: | I've thought about growing beans for drying, but I wonder about how much energy it takes to cook dried beans. I would have thought that it was far more efficient to cook on an industrial scale, and tinned beans do seem very cheap. Has anyone looked into it?
Peter. |
When you are cooking your own dry beans, they cook much faster than dry beans from the store, as those are usually a couple years old, and much drier. Add to this the ease of cooking them after an overnight soak, and you're really not talking about much cooking time. I have a friend who always cooks his beans with a pressure cooker, it's super fast. |
Slim: tried ours for the first time last night and they did cook much quicker than those we have previously bought. Did my own version of Baked beans on toast with home-made tomato sauce and poached eggs - Mmmmm
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mochyn
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I've still got plenty of runners on the vine but we had a slight frost last night. I'll have to have a look later and make an executive decision.
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gunners71uk
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i have pumpkin seeds derying mixed varietys of runner beans drying too and loads of kew blue,i have spwn aquadulce so will be saving the seed next year going to save sweet pea seed too !
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