The lima bean is a green or light flat bean. It is use only for the
seed, the pods being coarse or woody. Some lima beans are canned and
they are handled in such the same manner as the frozen product except
that they may or may not be passed through the quality grader.
In case it is the fresh beans, the beans are first washed carefully and
stored. They are size-graded and then blanched in hot water at 88-95 °C –
the amount of time depends upon the maturity of beans, varying from 2
to 3 minutes for young, tender beans to 7 or 8 minutes for more mature
tougher beans.
The beans are automatically metered into cans. The filled cans pass to
the briner where a boiling hot 2% salt brine is added to completely fill
the can. The cans are sealed and heat-processed.
Some lima beans to be canned are allowed to mature and dry out on the
vine before harvesting. In such cases, the beans must be soaked in water
for purposes of rehydrating prior to further processing.
Canning of lima beans
