Drying my red beans

[susan]

Mike has a very bad memory problem. I can tell him not to pick something in the garden and 10 minutes later I'll look out and he's picking it. Namely my red beans. They need to stay on the plants until they are dry and twice now he's picked them. So I've got all these beans in sort of green pods, some are looking more yellow now. I'm thinking about taking a needle and thread and stringing them to hang until they dry. Do any of you think that will work?

Susan

[Granny Smith]

The first time I grew dried beans (Jacob's Cattle, I think), I didn't know you were supposed to let them dry on the vine and picked all of them when they were ripe, but not dry. I pulled the entire plant. I hung the plants in the greenhouse and the beans dried fine, although they weren't quite as big as they might have been. I think stringing them up will work.

[joanfromzonesix]

i dried stuff once on an old window screen set up in a car on blocks - you know how hot it gets inside a parked car !

i would not advise trying it with something more than one layer deep -

[Granny Smith]

I think I'm going to try drying elderberries on a screen in the van. My dehydrator isn't big enough for all I want to dry and I have 2 screens in the shed that I'm not using.

[joanfromzonesix]

just curious - what do you do with dried elderberry ? i've never found any use for anything but the juice - heated, mashed and squoze through cheesecloth and then water-bath canned to save for winter immunity potion -

(i like that "squoze" - use it as you wish in conversation)

[Granny Smith]

I just dry them for making elderberry syrup or extract as we need it for viruses. You can make either of them with dried berries, although I'll probably make a quart of the extract with some of the fresh ones so I'll have it onhand. I can't always wait 6 weeks for extract if someone is sick.

I never squoze the juice out of them before. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't try it now.

[joanfromzonesix]

could be you're on to something - perhaps the strongest ingredient in the extract does reside in the seeds and it's something i discard by only using the juice - maybe i'll try liquifying the seeds along with the rest of the berry in my vitamix and then using the juice from the entire berry -

my yard-sale bargain vitamix is amazing - i just finished making juice from five gallons of tomatoes and the total pulp (residue) left after squozing was about a quarter cup -

[Granny Smith]

Oh, you got a Vitamix at a yard sale? Now I'm jealous! Seems like I throw out a quarter of the tomatoes when I make juice with the food mill.

[susan]

What kind of food mill do you have, Gayle? I have one of those that looks like a pot with a piece in the middle that turns with a crank. I don't like it. I've got a bunch of tomatoes from the garden and last years are still in the freezer. I need to get citric acid. I'm having a hard time convincing Mike that I need to go to the Mennonite store. I'm also in need of rice flour, curry powder, ginger powder and a few other things. My list keeps getting longer.

Susan

[Granny Smith]

Susan, this is like mine~

[susan]

That's the same as mine. What I really really want is this: 3.bp.blogspot.com/-qGsuO9U6yOk/ThzApVVO50I/AAAAAAAAAio/Gk17HEwD7_k/s1600/Victorio+Food+Mill.jpg but my rich uncle has to get out of the poor house first.

Susan

[Granny Smith]

Oh, heck, I forgot I had one of those! I got it at a secondhand store. It's still in the box!