Great Northern Beans

I canned a batch of great northern beans this morning - they're still processing in the canner right now. I bought a bunch of organic dry great northerns at the health food store last week so I could make the baked beans, can a couple batches, and make white bean and ham soup (post coming later). I'm going to do another batch of baked beans today and can another batch of plain great northerns later on, as well... and I'll be done with them this year. I made 10 pints in this batch - and I'll do another 10 pints later on.

I used the same process I posted last year when I made black beans. First I soaked the beans in water overnight (about 12-18 hours). Then drained them, rinsed them, and put the first batch into my largest stockpot (a 12-quart) and covered them with water by about an inch. You then bring them up to a boil for 30 minutes and remove from heat. Using a slotted spoon, fill the jars with the beans, then use a ladle to add the cooking liquid, leaving a 1-inch headspace. (I used my pasta stockpot this time with the insert in so I just raised the beans out in the insert and left the cooking water in the pot... much easier!) Then I processed the beans for 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. And voila! Home-canned great northern beans... with no additives, salt, preservatives, etc.! Not only does this save some money (using the organic beans, it ended up being about 35 cents per pint), but it will limit our exposure to BPA tremendously since the beans only touched the metal lid during the processing time.

I'll update with a picture once I take them out of the canner.