Home Canned Baked Beans

This easy homemade canned baked beans are sweet, tangy and the perfect copykat recipe for store bought  baked beans.  

I love homemade baked beans, but I also love the convenience of canned beans, so lately I have been canning my own baked beans so I have plenty on hand for quick dinner meals or summer cookouts. This summer I've been working hard on stocking our pantry with some of our favorite canned convenience foods so I'm not so dependent on store - bought items. It not only saves me money, but I can also control what ingredients go into each jar.  

Canning your own baked beans is really simple! Other than rinsing and draining the beans, it's really just a matter of adding all the ingredients to each jar (dried beans, syrup ingredients and very hot water), then processing the jars. Beans are a low acid food so they must be pressure canned. I don't soak my beans before canning because they tend to get mushy after 75 minutes in the pressure canner. I only use this method with Navy beans, since they're a smaller bean if it was pinto or another bean variety, I would soak them first. 

I have only been pressure canning for about 2 years and honestly it took me a long time to finally work up the courage to even use one. But I really had no other choice because our garden was expanding and there were only so many things that I could process in a hot water bath-canner.

My biggest hurdle was getting over the intimidation of the pressure canner itself. I don't know about you, but putting a big covered pot, loaded full of glass jars filled with food, under full pressure put my anxiety into high gear. But I can honestly say that once I got over the fear and started slowly, I was well on my way to preserving even more food for my family. 

This baked bean recipe is sweetened with brown sugar and sorghum syrup. I love adding sorghum to my baked beans because it deepens the flavor of all the other ingredients. These home canned baked beans taste similar to Bush's Baked Beans, so if you're a fan, I hope you'll give this recipe a try.  

To start sterilize all of your jars and rings. Rinse and drain the navy beans and set aside.

Add 3/4 cup dry Navy beans to each sterilized pint size jar. Since Navy beans are so tiny they are the only dry bean that you can add more than 1/2 cup to a pint jar. Add ketchup, brown sugar, onion flakes, apple cider vinegar, salt, mustard, sorghum and bacon ends. Fill each jar with very hot water leaving 1 inch head space for each jar. A good rule of thumb is to add the hot water up to the neck of the jar.

Use a chop stick of bubble stick and stir well to remove any air bubbles. Wipe the rims of the jars with a clean, damp cloth dipped in white vinegar to make sure it is clean of any debris. Add lids and rings and tighten to finger tip tight (this means that once the ring stops turning freely, it is tight enough to prevent buckling of the lids in the canner).  

Place the jars into you prepared pressure canner on top of the canning rack. Follow your canners instructions on how much water to add to the bottom of your canner. It is normally about 3 quarts of water depending on the size of your canner. Always remember the temperature of the water needs to be the same temperature of the ingredients in your jars.

Add the lid and lock in place. My canner has arrows on mine. Make sure the dial is facing forward.

Turn the burner to high and let the water inside the canner come to a boil until you see steam coming out of the air vent hole. Let the steam vent for 10 minutes then add the regulator gauge on top of the air vent hole. When the canner reaches 10 pounds of pressure, turn the heat down and process pint size jars for 75 minutes.

You will need to play around with the heat and increase and decrease the temperature as needed to keep the heat regulated so the canner stays at 10 pounds for the whole canning process. Sudden changes of temperature as the jars are processing can cause siphoning, so try and keep the pressure a steady 10 lbs.

When the button is down the canner is not pressurized. When the button pops up that means the canner has built pressure and it is now pressurized and should never be opened. 

When the processing time is complete turn off the heat, leave the canner undisturbed (do not remove the weighted regulator) and allow the pressure canner to come down to Zero (0). Wait 10 minutes, make sure the button is down and then remove the weighted regulator and un-lock the lid tilting the lid away from yourself.

Leave the lid cracked for and additional 10 minutes before removing the jars. If you remove the jars too quickly they will start to siphon. When the 10 minutes is complete, remove the jars using the jar lifter. Be careful because the jars are very hot and the mixture is usually still bubbling.

Place the jars on the counter on a thick dish towel to cool completely. You will hear the jars pop which means the jars are sealing. Allow the jars to cool completely for 12 - 24 hours before removing the bands. Make sure all the jars have sealed. Rinse the jars and lid under running water and dry. Label, date and store jars in a cool, dark dry place for up to 18 months.

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