Home Canned Baked Beans

These beans are "baked" only in the sense of their flavor.  We love them.  My favorite baked beans are my mother's - she buys Bush's Baked Beans and then doctors them up.  Well, I think these baked beans are equally delicious and I can make them with local, organic ingredients if I choose.  I love to take a jar of these on vacation for a British breakfast or beans and weenies.

Home Canned Baked Beans - originally from Mennonite Country Style with tweaks by me

4 cups dry navy beans
1/4 lb. chopped bacon
2 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
2 Tbsp. prepared mustard

4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. black pepper
dash cayenne

Soak the navy beans for at least 8 hours in water to cover by two inches.  Cook 1 hour in the same water.  Reserve 2 1/2 cups bean liquid and drain the rest off.  Mix  rest of ingredients into drained beans along with bean liquid.  Place in quart or pint jars, leaving 2" headspace.  Process in pressure canner at 10 lbs. pressure, 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts.  Yields about 8 pints.

These beans really siphon during canning.  "Siphoning" is when the liquid is forced out of the jars during processing, which results in a mess in the canning kettle and jars that don't seal as particles come between the seal on the lid and the jar rim.  Not good!  Whole tomatoes and salsa are also bad for siphoning.

To prevent siphoning, underfill jars and allow plenty of headspace.  In this batch of baked beans, I filled my jars too full because I didn't want to have 8 jars when my pressure canner only holds 7 quarts at a time - however, my effort was wasted because one jar didn't seal anyway due to siphoning, and it had to go into the freezer.  I need my freezer space for the eighth of beef we're getting this week!

I think I'm finally done with my canning, although I'll can stock occasionally as we eat turkey and chicken.  My next posts will be about other things, sewing, and. . . . news.