Canning Baked Beans

I am not a perfectionist but I really don’t like to fail at anything!  Let me back up, my sweet husband loves baked beans; particularly his mom’s baked beans.  I hate beans, all beans, except maybe the green ones.  In 27+ years of marriage I’ve never cooked baked beans.  Yesterday I decided I would make him baked beans. And because I tend to be an over achiever, not only would I make him beans I would can up a few jars of homemade baked beans that he could enjoy on another occasion!  You know with homemade BBQ sauce, fresh onion, bell peppers and tomatoes from our garden!

I called my mother in law for her recipe which included ‘open a can of Van Camp beans!’ But I was working with dry Navy beans.  Google will tell you if you’re working with dry beans to ‘soak them over night’ but another source will say ‘boil for 1 hour’ and a third source will say ‘boil for 10 minutes remove from heat and soak for 1 hour.’  The directions for cooking time and temperatures vary as well.  I’ll leave this paragraph with. 'after 12 hours, the crock pot, the oven, the instant pot and 3 trips to the grocery store we finally had baked beans.'  But the process was an epic failure!  

I have Googled, YouTubed, and read more about baked beans than I ever intended.  It’s hours of my life I will never get back.  In fact I lost sleep over the silly process, so this morning I woke up at 4:45am after soaking new Navy beans overnight and started all over with my new found knowledge and yesterdays experience. 

   

To begin, sort and wash dry beans.  Add 3 cups of water for each cup of dried beans and soak overnight.  

Prepare molasses sauce: 

2 cups bbq sauce

¼ cup mustard

¼ cup ketchup

1 onion whole

½ green bell pepper finely diced

1 cup dark brown sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 whole banana pepper

1 ½ small jalapenos (seeded)

1 tablespoon vinegar

2 teaspoons salt

3 slices of bacon chopped

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

Add beans and molasses sauce to cover beans. Cover and bake 4 to 5 hours in crock pot on low. Add water as needed stirring about every hour.

OR Instant Pot 45 minutes manual on High,

Fill sterilized Ball Pint Jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process with 10 lbs of pressure in your Pressure Canner; pints for 65 minutes and quarts for 75 minutes.

So I still don't like baked beans but everyone else in the house loved them!  

Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side.  Ezekiel 4:9