The purpose of blanching most vegetables in boiling water before freezing is to deactivate the enzymes which will change the appearance, texture, taste and cause loss of vitamins. This is done by bringing the temperature of the product up to about 180 degrees as fast as possible to deactivate the enzymes and this is what matters. The amount of time needed is a best guess based on practice, and varies from one source to another with no precession.

If you have a digital thermometer pull a bean out at 1 minute and quickly slide the thermometer into the bean through the end. If it shows 170 to 190 degrees they are good to pull and ice down. If not done try another at 2 minutes, and continue until they are hot enough to ice down.

The sources I used for time on sweet corn really pissed me off. The first year I used University of Minnesota's recommendations and stated to blanch 4 minutes and cool in ice water for 4 minutes, then I cut off the kernels, froze on a sheet pan and packaged. 4 months later they sucked, and the taste was terrible.

The next year I used University of Utah's recommendations stating 11 minutes for large ears and cool the same amount of time. Tasted good 4 to six months later but I didn't want cream corn because they cooked to long. and the cob temperature under the kennel was still 90 degrees when I pulled them from the ice water, another failed guesstimate.

From the third year on I did it my way and blanched until the temperature under the kennel hit 170 to 180 degrees and iced down until the temp under the kennel hit the mid 50's. Nice great tasting crisp kenneled sweet corn, and when vacuum pack the corn it will stay as good as the day I made it a year later. Had a bag from last year just last night and it was amazing! So any blanching I do now is by temperature and not time. To many variables involved like product size, size of the pot used, stove BTU size, ect... so any guess from one source may not be right for you. I also do asparagus among other things and the last thing I want is soggy spears.

I would blanch your beans whole, but then you can cut them up into any length you want, it won't make a hill of beans difference.

Thanks for that great response Kevin!

I second Catherinet's appreciation for Kevin's excellent response. I don't freeze much, since we have high risk of power outages in our area. But, it's good information to store away in my brain.

Martha

Hi docmommich........I DO worry about power failures with all my freezing. I had considered going back to canning, but it just seems like too much work. I hope I don't regret it! We do have a small generator, but it really needs updated.