Last year we decided to up our dry bean game. Not only did we plant two 30-ft rows of dry beans (black, kidney, and cannellini), we also planted the prolific whippoorwill cowpeas. On a much smaller scale in years past, we’ve just hand-shelled the legumes. But with the volume we harvested last year and now this year, we knew we’d need a better system to shell and harvest dry beans.
Serendipity (or perhaps a small gardening obsession) had me reading a book on cultivating pulses and legumes. In a side note, the author described how they harvested and shelled their dry beans and included a brief description of their threshing box. Essentially a 2ft x 2ft plywood box that the dried pods are placed in and then you dance and stomp on them until the beans are free. We decided to create our own version of a threshing box to see if we could make bean shelling a bit more efficient.
After the beans were freed from their pods, it was time to winnow. We set up a fan and began blowing away the chaff, removing the bad beans, and collecting the rest in a mason jar. While this method doesn’t remove the labor, it definitely sped up the process!
With another bumper crop of dry beans this year, we’re reconsidering our shelling methods. We have our eye on a pea sheller that can be cranked by hand or attached to a hand mixer to fly through the harvest. Every minute counts when you have tomatoes to can, beans to freeze, and other garden produce to lay by for the winter!
Enough chit chat from me! Now to tackle the rest of the dry beans in the garage…
1. Harvest dry beans when brown and crispy
Allow the bean pods to dry on the vine or bush until they are dry and crisp. If you’re able, turn off the irrigation to the dry bean garden about a week before you plan to harvest the pods. If the mature pods stay moist for too long, they will mold or even sprout in the pod!
Also, if the forecast is looking damp and rainy, pull up the whole plant and hang it up by the roots in a garage, shed, or other covered space to allow the beans to finish drying without risking the loss of moldy beans.
To know the beans are dry enough to harvest, press your fingernail into a bean. If it leaves a mark, it’s not time. The bean should be firm enough that your fingernail won’t leave an impression. When they are solid, it’s time to harvest dry beans!
2. Threshing or shelling to pop beans out of the pods
Now that the beans are good and dry, it’s time to pop them out of their pods. This process is called shelling or threshing. If you have a small harvest, you can crack open the pods by hand over a bowl to catch the beans.
For harvests a bit larger, a threshing box can speed up the shelling process. Easy and inexpensive to construct, this open-topped box can handle way more pods than your hands. (Get free plans below!) Simply toss a several handfuls of pods in, then stomp, crush, and shuffle the pods with your feet. Great way to get kids involved in food preservation!
If you plan to grow loads of dry beans, you might want to consider some more specialized equipment or tools to make the process more efficient. At a minimum a hand-cranked sheller would speed up the threshing process.
3. Winnowing to blow away the debris
As you probably noticed, your threshing box is now a mess of beans, empty pods, and other grit. Even if you chose to shell the beans by hand into a bowl, you’ll still have to deal with the papery flakes and the unavoidable dust and dirt of the shelling process.
Winnowing is simply blowing away the chaff. It’s as simple as that! Our ancestors would have tossed it into the air (preferably on a breezy day), but we can take a few modern shortcuts to get the beans into the pantry.
Set up a fan and gently toss the beans over your threshing box to blow away the pods and all other lightweight chaff. Alternatively, spreading out your beans on screen and using a hair dryer would work just as well.
4. Quality Control
While winnowing removes all the lightweight chaff, sometimes a few twigs, a stray pebble, or a stubborn pod will remain. Not all the beans threshed will be up to snuff. Remove any undeveloped, discolored, or other bad beans. Essentially remove anything you don’t want to accidentally eat later.
5. Storage
Dried beans store great at room temperature. One key thing to keep in mind is humidity will decrease the shelf life of your beans. Make sure to store your beans in an airtight container like a mason jar, tupperware, or pantry canister. Preferably out of direct light for maximum storage.
6. Save seeds for next year
Conveniently the bean we eat is the seed for next year, so seed saving is a snap. Save your prettiest and best beans for next year’s planting. Make sure you don’t eat all of your beans over the winter! Better yet, set aside your seed beans now and place them in your seed jar or box.
Don’t forget to get our free plans for a bean threshing box!