How to Dry Beans to Make Shucky Beans

Shucky beans are a thing you find more in the south than anywhere else in the US. Most people away from the south don't even know what they are, so I am going to try to explain how to dry beans.

• Ready In: 96 hrs
• Serves: 4-6
• Yields: 3-5 qt. jars

Ingredients

• 30  lbs green beans, see note
• 1  tablespoon black pepper, per qt. jar of beans

Directions

1. Note: 30 lbs of most green beans equal 1 bushel. Now if you want to use a smaller amount feel free to do so the directions are the same. Also, do not use pole beans or a flat bean you want them to have some bean in them. I always use either greasy or white half-runners.
2. String and break green beans, as you would for cooking, but do not wash.
3. After you string and break you must dry them and I will give you a couple of three ways to do this.
4. I now do this by using a dehydrator and I place my beans on the trays, not touching one another.
5. Turn on the dehydrator, mine has no settings, and let dry for about 2-3 days.
6. Rotate trays around so that beans on top eventually make it to the bottom to dry quicker. You must do this a couple of times a day. You want your dryer beans furtherest away from the heat source.
7. After they are good and dry (and it may not take your dehydrator as long or it could take it longer) you have to use your own judgment. You then take them out and place in pans. Place pans in oven and heat for 30 minutes on about 150-200 degrees. Watch them after 20 minutes and make sure they are not burning. Let the beans cool after having in oven.
8. You will have to use more than one dehydrator to fit the beans in or you can refrigerate the ones that won't fit and add them to the it after the first bunch is dry. I usually have 3 dehydrators going when I am drying a bushel.
9. Place beans in quart or gallon jugs, add the black pepper, and do be free with the black pepper, it will keep bugs from getting into your beans while they are in storage. My mother always made a note to tell people that the pepper was not bugs, but rather it was pepper. You can also put in a plastic container and store in freezer. I do not I put them in my cabinets.
10. Now you have dried beans.
11. Another way to make them is to break and string, then lay out on a screen in a hot attic, but you must check on them regularly because they will mold if you are not careful. This will take about a week to do this way maybe longer, but rest of the directions are the same, put in oven, heat, and then cool and place in jars with the pepper.
12. A very old fashion way, and I admit when I was a little girl we did them this way. You just string the bean and then take a needle and thread and put the whole bean on it and make as long as you want. Hang them on the porch for several days, until dry. When ready to use you must cut the beans. I think this is the hardest way and the most likely way for the beans to mold.
13. I have seen people string and break and lay in the back window of the car, I think this would be messy and I sure don't want to drive around town with beans in my back window.
14. To cook see Recipe #264351.
15. Note it also takes me about a day to break a bushel of beans.