Hello everyone!! First time posting in here. Yesterday I pressure canned for the first time ever!! I ended up with 12 pints of pinto beans and 6 pints of Lima beans. Now that the seals are set I have some questions and need some advice.
1) I had a total of 11 pints of limas HOWEVER after 24 hours 5 of them didn’t seal so they are in the fridge and will be split between me and the neighbor. Not sure exactly what I did wrong possibly to make them not seal.
-could I have over filled them?
-why is the water lower in some of the jars of limas? (Had some seeping in canner)
-what can I do in order to be better prepared next time?
2) The pinto bean dilemma. All of my jars took which was impressive to me since I did the pintos first and the Lima beans 2nd.
-why does the liquid in the pintos seem thick now instead of like liquid?
-why does it seem cloudy? (Starch maybe?)
3) overall questions
- both seem a tad cloudy. Do I need to rinse more before canning?
-I’m aware that the beans absorb water during processing since they were still being cooked. Why other than that could they be so low?
-what do you recommend if some don’t seal?
-what is the shelf life of these? (Technical and home answers welcome if allowed)
4) process
I soaked both beans over night. Washed the jars in the dishwasher so they could stay hot enough for me to pack them. I heated up the beans on the stove so it would be hot. Had the lids in boiling water and took them out as I needed them. Would take a hot jar, fill it with beans until they were close to the shoulder part of the jar, then fill it with the bean water until 1 inch headspace is reached. Then I would get the bubbles out, adjust the liquid, clean rim extremely well, place the lid on, finger tighten band and put in canner. Canner was warming up and getting hot as I’m doing this. Once the canner was full I put the lid on, vent for 10 minutes, place the weight, watch the pressure, canned for 75 minutes at between 11 and 13 pounds. Let it depressurize per the book and let them sit.
Sorry for such a long post wanted to make sure I covered everything so you would have as much info as possible to help me out. Thank you all in advance.
by Adventurous-Chest472