Bring the water to a full rolling boil and drop them in and set the timer for 2 mins. You just want to scald them, not cook them.

Blanching them over steam is even easier since you don't have to worry if the water is the right temperature or not - if it is steaming it is right. ;).

Dave

thanks Dave,

these beans are royal burgundy so they turn green in the hot water. it takes about 2 1/2 min. so that is what i am doing.

i hope it works.

Dean

Yeah I have done them before too - kinda neat! And great taste too. Soon as they turn green take them out, dunk in ice water and then freeze.

Dave

Beans are one of the vegetables that you really don't need to blanch. A friend told me that and I have since read it in several books and articles.

It is your choice to ignore the approved guidelines of course but blanching the beans before freezing is the accepted standard and is strongly recommended. And it serves an important purpose in killing both bacteria and enzymes and preventing spoilage of the beans.

Unlike blanching, freezing doesn't kill bacteria.

Dave

Here's a website that talks about this:

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf763136.tip.html

and along with a friend's advice, I later read the same information in The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food, by Janet Chadwick. It's from Storey, a publishing house that specializes in harvest and garden material. Chadwick rates preserving methods in terms of ease and also superiority of results, and under "Freezing Unblanched Whole or Julienne Beans" she lists it as "Fastest, Best Finished Product."

I'm going to cook the beans anyway before I eat them, so that takes care of any bacteria.

Here is a link to a much more reliable source, the recognized authority on food preservation, and the source of all the home canning research.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP - Blanching

Dean, I always grow Royal Burgundy, the kids in the family call them Aunt Annie's Magic Beans because they turn color when they are cooked. (grin) I can mine because I like canned beans better than the frozen ones, but when I freeze them, I blanch them because I like the texture better, but I think the bacteria is a non-issue because, as mentioned, they're going to be cooked before use. The NCHFP only says that it's a quality issue, if you read it, not a safety issue, and I wash my beans before freezing them so that takes care of the "cleansing" part of NCHFP's instructions. It appears to be "not recommended" rather than "not safe", although they don't differentiate between quality and safety issues, it's all just "not recommended".

Anyway...

The original poster didn't even say he was going to freeze beans, he's making the dilly beans and they pack into a jar far more easily when blanched.

Annie

I see that the ThriftyFun site riverfarm linked to does make one distinction between blanched and unblanched frozen beans -- they say the blanched ones will keep 12 months but the unblanched ones only 6 months (presumably because they'd lose firmness due to the aforementioned enzyme action).

Of course they may simply be repeating what they've been told. It would be interesting to freeze some each way and see whether we can tell the difference after 12 months.

something else fun I found out, those purple beans cause the microwave to arc like there's metal in it. We were going to steam some fresh ones in the microwave and it did that. Isn't that weird?

According to this article in the Christian Science Monitor, the purple color comes from anthocyanins, which can be either red or blue, depending on pH levels. (So I'm guessing that anthocyanins may also be responsible for those magic hydrangeas.) I haven't yet found any information on the molecular structure of anthocyanins that I am able to understand, but I'm guessing that they're not your microwave culprit, because they're also found in just about every blue or purple fruit or vegetable.