Looking for a way to preserve your dried goods like rice or beans.. Dry canning is the way to go. It preserves and lengthens the shelf life of your product better than your common conventional ways. It also helps keep your dried goods from going stale.
Also another benefit to dry canning is it kills bugs, bug eggs or even larva in products, which a lot of time will be in your bulk dry goods. It's awful to think of, but good thing is this process kills those nasties when canning.
Choosing the Right Product to dry can.
When making your choice you need to
avoid any product with a oil or moisture content over 10%.
Products with an oil content higher than 10% you’ll have issues like botulism or mold growth inside the mason jars/product.
Most common things to dry can be any type of dry rice or beans, you can even dry can some types of flours.
Your probably thinking... hold on Christina.. You just mention Botulism....
Yep.. I did....
Don't freak out on me...
It is something you need consider in any of your canning procedures, whether it’s dry canning, water-bath or pressure canning. With dry canning rice (or dried beans like pinto or black beans) botulism will not be an issue if you use products with a low moisture content.
Also Botulism spores, bacteria and bugs are killed at a temperature between 185-200 degrees, and the method I’m sharing uses 250 degrees as its standard.
Note about Botulism.
Botulism grows in an anaerobic or airless environment, it’s got to have moisture (water or oils) in the canned products for it to feed off of and the alkalinity is high!
High pressure water canning and brining things are other ways to avoid botulism, But this is only with high moisture products that you are not able to dry can. For example: Jelly has a large sugar content, which is too high for the botulism to grow.
If there happens to be any botulism spores that are present in the dry goods; Leaving the product open and out for 12 hrs will render them inert. USDA has more helpful info if you need to look into this further.
Let's Get Started...
*Video Below*
Wash/clean sanitizer jars and lids
Set oven temp to 225 degrees
Place lids in cookie sheet, set aside
Place jars in cookie sheet right side up, place in oven for fifteen minutes ( this is to sterilize the jars) also dry out an moisture left after washing
Next take jars out of oven and fill them with your dry goods
Leave a headspace: about 1”
Place back in oven and repeat process with remaining jars
At 225 degree oven process jars 90 minutes
Lids ( DO NOT boil lids in water)
Place lids on a pan or cookie sheet with rims on, these will go in the oven with the 15 minutes left in the canning process (this process will not only heat the lids/rubber seals up but will also sterilize them too)
Take jar out of oven one at a time, lightly wipe lid with dap vinegar paper towel
Then take out one lid, with oven mitt on or kitchen towel place hand tighten lid on
Repeat
You’ll hear the jars pop when they have sealed, like all other canning processes
( It can take 30 minutes to an hour to hear the seal. Don't move or store till next day.)