preserving greenbeans in brine solution

[rhoda_bruce]

I am able to can my beans after harvest, but I've read John Seymore's book,"The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live it." and in it, he suggests that his favorite method of preserving greenbeans are to submerge them in a brine solution in a very large crock. He claims that they taste much fresher than canning, because they are over cooked by pressure canning and lose some of the flavor.
He claims to just pull from the top what he needs, working his way down until the crock is empty. Instructs to rinse the beans in lots of water to remove the high salt from the beans and proceed to cooking.
Well, my problem is that the crock I would want to use is over $200 and I feel I would need 2 of them. So I am wondering if any of you use Seymore's method and if glass would do just as good, if its in a dark room....I have a few glass pickle jars. And I can probably find a large container for a fraction of the crock.
I wouldn't be asking except that crocks are also used to pickle and DH found several people on the net claiming to pickle directly in glass pickle jars.
I am incline to believe this is possible, but was hoping for moral support.

 

[Wannabefree]

Oh yeah I forgot about that!! I want to try that this year too! It's entirely possible. I'm going to use an old butter churn and see how that works out

 

[ORChick]

I don't see nay reason why you couldn't use a glass jar. I'm sure that they used crocks in *the old days* because they were more available than glass, while today, of course, the opposite is true.
A few years ago I experimented with salted beans - not a brine, just beans and salt - and wrote about the results here: http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=3244&p=4

 

[rhoda_bruce]

That's John Seymore's method described. The salt becomes the brine. But while DH and I have been considering all this, he read up on dehydration and as far as he can see we can do that also. He is worried about the amount of salt we will need to salt the beans. Really with the price of gas to cook, the price of electricity to cool after we can and the price of jar lids, I can't see that cancelling those prices out and paying for the salt would hurt us though. But we can try both methods this year. I planted some of our bean seeds yesterday. I know its early, but I want a jump start, cuz I have a lot of work to do.

 

[Wannabefree]

I have read up on dehydration as well, and if storage is a problem, you can just leave those hanging until ready for use. There are a few ways to do it, in a dehydrator of course, or you can run a thread through the middle of whole beans and hang them on a back porch out of the sun to air dry too. I'm going to be trying a few methods this year provided I get enough beans. I don't really like the results of freezing, and I don't have enough jars yet to can as many as we would eat in a year, so I will be doing a few things to experiment and see what we like best.

rhoda, I agree, the salt would likely be much more cost effective, but maybe not as cost effective as drying. Both should be more cost effective than canning though.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

DH ordered a dehydrator and as of Saturday, it was in CA, in route. Hoping it is very close to LA by now. I have onions to dry out.
I used to not have much masons in the beginning, but bought more each year. The mistake I made was I would can more of what I hadn't even finished from previous years, so I was stockpilling figs and such. Now, I'm older and wiser. And I am about to double my masons because my grandmother has passed on. She has food in some of her. It will be a few years before I preserve figs. Guess we just have to make a lotta wine this summer.....fig and blackberry for sure. Maybe I can read up on drying figs, cuz I do like those.
If I properly manage and rotate my masons, I think I have plenty enough, after all these years of collecting.

 

[Wannabefree]

I only have about 200 right now. I'll be buying LOTS more this year. What kind of dehydrator did ya get?

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Oh sorry, I'm not sure. I know its 20 inches high and I think 17 wide....well it has 15 square feet of drying space. It has a timer and I know it was under $300, if that tells you anything. I'm glad we gonna have it, but it is dependant on the grid to operate, so I'd like to consider having some screened sheets of tin to aim at the sun for an old standby......just in case. Thats how we do the shrimp, afterall.

 

[Wannabefree]

You dry shrimp?

I need to go get my screens today. I have a place I can go get some 5x6 foot pieces of framed screen. I just now, thanks to this thread, thought of a use for them! Sheesh I am slooooow I could easily use those to dry fruit and such this summer instead of filling and refilling and refilling the dehydrator I have!

 

[animalfarm]

Salt is something I have been stockpiling. I can go to the local bulk food barn and ask the manager to special order sea salt for me. If you buy straight from the bins its 78cents lb but if you buy by the 50lb bag special order, its only 26 cents. I can get either course or fine and it has no additives of any kind so its good for pickling and preserving.