Price of Great Value pintos beans per 15.5 oz can: 86¢.
Price of 4 pounds of dried pinto beans: $3.76.
Number of pint jars worth of beans you get from a 4 lb bag: 15.
That brings us to 25¢ per jar because I’m reusing lids. I’ll test each jar tomorrow for a proper seal to see if any of the reused lids failed. But they almost never do.
If you have to buy lids or don’t have Tattler reusable kids then it’s going to cost 55¢ per can and after figuring in labor and electricity it’s probably not worth it. But if you are paying ~$1.40 a can for name brand pintos in a can then it’s still worth it.
This will become burritos, refried beans and other things in the future.
I used to have a 10 tray dehydrator that was a beast. But it’s got a short somewhere in it and well I am very familiar with electronics. I can’t find out where that short is.
Here’s the problem with using the dehydrator for beans. It can only make refried beans. I want versatility in my ingredients. Sometimes I want whole beans. Sometimes I won’t refried beans. When I’ve canned beans in the past, I might have fried up some smoked hog jowl and put a chili pepper in there for all kinds of flavor. The problem is that limits what you get to make with them when it comes time to cooking.
I never thought about dehydrated bean powder. I’m not much of a bean eater unless.
But there’s a fast growing edible plant (Azolla filiculoides) and when I run out room for it and have to cultivate it and store it outside of growing space.
Powdered form would be decent since I can make smoothies/drinks from that
Problems is I’d have to store the azolla before I was and boil it to be dehydrated