Can you can cooked wheat berries?

Hello,  I was wondering if it's possible to pressure can cooked wheat berries. I can't find any information on this anywhere on the internet!!! I wanted to can some wheat berries so I could just pop open a jar without having to cook a fresh batch every time I want to use some, particularly in the summer time. Has anyone ever done it? Is it a thing? I feel like I've seen jars of cooked wheat berries at the store, but it's so strange that I can't find anything about it on the whole world wide web! Thanks to anyone who has any insight.

I cook them and then dehydrate to use for bulgur in salads after cracking the cooked and dried wheat.
Canning might overcook them depending on the use?

Or maybe could put dry wheat berries with water in the jar and the canning would cook them?

I'd call that very iffy. They make a thick porridge when cooked, and to can safely you need the heat and pressure to go all the way into the middle of each grain.

If I were going to try it (and personally, I WOULDN'T)
A) I'd definitely cook them first, and use a LOT of water.
B) I'd use a LOT of water to can them, so they stay separate, not clump up, maybe 1/3 cooked grains to 2/3 water in the jars.
C) I'd over-process them hard, at least 90 minutes at 15 PSI, as the heat and pressure will have a very hard time getting the center of the grain.
D) I'd check them REALLY REALLY WELL when I opened them, ANY HINT of a problem gets them thrown out.

Like I said, I wouldn't. And I tend to can some iffy stuff.  :D

Cooking enough to then dehydrate takes less than an hour...add some pressure cooking and I agree that we would have mush....but I know folks who cook and can at the same time dry beans...I never have....wheat might be similar to do? Or it might be one big kitchen mess to remember  

I sprout and dehydrate and sometimes roast wheat... then crack for 'malt o meal' or grind fine for flour.

The bulgur is a great cold dish once all the processing is done just add a liquid to rehydrate.

Lauren, what do you do in the end with your cooked wheat?

Judith Browning wrote: I know folks who cook and can at the same time dry beans...I never have....wheat might be similar to do?

Beans don't make a sticky gravy and adhere to each other when cooked. That's the part that worries me. I think if they are put in uncooked, you'd end up with a brick that no pressure/heat got into the middle of.

I like the cook and dehydrate idea, I need to do that with some of mine   :D

I cook wheat until chewy but no 'gravy or stickiness'...it's a soft wheat so less gluten...maybe that makes all the difference in the experience

Judith Browning wrote:I cook wheat until chewy but no 'gravy or stickiness'...it's a soft wheat so less gluten...maybe that makes all the difference in the experience

That is an interesting point! All of it I have ever cooked turned into a sticky mass, which is great for some things, but a problem to can up.

Judith Browning wrote:Lauren, what do you do in the end with your cooked wheat?

Well, I haven't done anything yet. Hahaha. I just bought my first bag of wheat berries because I wanted to see if I could substitute them for pasta. Basically just wanted to boil them up and throw my pasta sauce on them. But it's infernally hot and I didn't want to heat the house everyday with hot steam, so I thought that if I could pressure can a bunch of jars, I'd only have to heat the house once for several meals. I live in Italy and pasta is a daily necessity for my husband.

Since we would be consuming them probably within a two week period or so, I would there be much of a risk of spoilage (or botulism)?

Also, Italian flour is very weak compared to American flour. I'm pretty sure it's "soft" wheat and I don't think it has as much gluten as American flour. I guess I'll first see if it boils up ok, then I can worry about whether or not to can it.

Judith Browning wrote:but I know folks who cook and can at the same time dry beans...I never have....wheat might be similar to do? Or it might be one big kitchen mess to remember  

I just tried cooking and canning simultaneously dry beans for the first time. I haven't tried them yet, so I can't say if I think it's a good idea or not. I didn't presoak, because the "recipe" I saw didn't, but all the beans split open. I think next time I'll try soaking and then directly canning without the precook.

This is very old information, but years ago I read that the only grain that was safe for home-canning was corn, which is why a few canning recipes that call for a thickener, call for corn starch.

They quite maddingly, did not give information on "why," although my Dinosaur Memory thinks that the word Botulism was implied, and it can be hard to detect until you're sick.

For Lauren's specific issue, I would have thought you could cook a large batch and refrigerate for 5-7 days if you bottled it hot in daily serving sizes?
Alternatively, could you get an electric slow-cooker and cook it outside? Or a camp stove/rocket stove and cook it outside?

Jay Angler wrote:They quite maddingly, did not give information on "why," although my Dinosaur Memory thinks that the word Botulism was implied, and it can be hard to detect until you're sick.

Anyone know how long it would take for botulism to grow?

Jay Angler wrote:For Lauren's specific issue, I would have thought you could cook a large batch and refrigerate for 5-7 days if you bottled it hot in daily serving sizes?

That's looking like my best alternative for the moment. Once a week is still better than every day. My biggest issue with that solution is that we have miniscule fridges over here and mine is currently stuffed to the gills with cucumbers and pickles. We can't eat them fast enough.

Jay Angler wrote:Alternatively, could you get an electric slow-cooker and cook it outside? Or a camp stove/rocket stove and cook it outside?

I actually just got a single induction burner from Ikea and I've been cooking with it outside. It's definitely better than heating up the house, but it's a little inconvenient carting everything back and forth from the kitchen to my back yard everyday. Plus the mosquitos are murderous this year.

Lauren: I'd suggest also try the cook then dehydrate bit  that Judith suggested, and see if it tastes good with what you eat. That might be a good solution  :D

No idea how fast botulism grows. Probably depends on WAY too many factors to figure out.

I just bought my first bag of wheat berries because I wanted to see if I could substitute them for pasta. Basically just wanted to boil them up and throw my pasta sauce on them.

Whole cooked wheat berries with pasta sauce...
I like rice this way which the wheat would more resemble than pasta I think?

I like the idea of refrigerating the cooked wheat for a week at a time.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. Wheatberries store incredibly well (as in, for years) unprocessed. To keep bugs out, seal it well, with a bay leaf or two in each container. This is the easiest, fastest way to store them, and keeps all of the use options open. I've done it that way, and even after moving my entire kitchen and pantry 3x, and misplacing some for 8yrs(!?!), when the surprise jar was opened, the berries were still good. Out of curiosity, I tried sprouting some, and they even still had about a 50% viability.

Lauren Knickman wrote:But it's infernally hot and I didn't want to heat the house everyday with hot steam, so I thought that if I could pressure can a bunch of jars, I'd only have to heat the house once for several meals.

Maybe the solution is an outdoor cooking setup instead?

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Lauren Knickman wrote:But it's infernally hot and I didn't want to heat the house everyday with hot steam, so I thought that if I could pressure can a bunch of jars, I'd only have to heat the house once for several meals.

Maybe the solution is an outdoor cooking setup instead?

A simple brick rocket stove has been my answer to this - or cooking a large batch & freezing it in one- meal portions.  

My kitchen is on the upper floor of our house, so it's a short flight to the small, concrete front porch, and a second short flight to the concrete pad in front of the house, so I totally get the nuisance factor of trying to cook outside.

That said, if I can get to the point of having some sort of reasonable out door kitchen with bug netting (mosquitos aren't too bad here, but wasps show up the second they smell good stuff) and then I'd love to build what Carla suggested.
Here's a link: https://permies.com/t/137193/bricks-simple-rocket-stove
I believe people have found that you're best not to use the "minimum" number as it will be less smoky and more pleasant to use if you make it a bit taller. At my age, I'd probably want to put it up on extra bricks as well, so that I don't have to bend so low.

Lauren Knickman wrote:

My biggest issue with that solution is that we have miniscule fridges over here and mine is currently stuffed to the gills with cucumbers and pickles. We can't eat them fast enough.

I'd be making naturally fermented pickles which could be stored in a "cool" rather than "refrigerated" location (do you have a basement area? Or could you dig a "garbage can cold cellar" hole?). Or I'd be making sweet pickles and boiling water bathing them to make them shelf stable. They're acid enough that you could likely reuse whatever glass jars you can scrounge.

Thanks to everyone for the very helpful suggestions. I guess I'll nix the canning and maybe give that simple brick rocket stove a try!

Good luck Lauren!

Another thought that could be helpful in order to cook the wheat a bit faster is to
soak it overnight or for several hours at least, drain in the morning and cook with fresh water until done.

And I think sprouting first would speed up the cooking also...just barely sprouted not fully modified as for malt.

We don't have air conditioning just fans but we are early early risers so on those hottest summer days our cooking is done for the day by 8 or 9am...kitchen is CLOSED

Wheat--steaned, dried, then cracked equals bulgur.

Wheat berries are low acid, which means your risk is of botulism which can produce toxin as soon as 24 hours. Not something I would mess with.

The reason there are not canning instructions is that the de site of wheat goo in canning can make it so the proper temp is not reached to kill botulism.

This is also why you do not can soups with any grains in them.

Two things on the theoretical side:
1) you would end up with mush by the time you process it, then reboil it
2) you need to boil low acid, pressure canned foods before you eat them in case a spore made it through the canning process, which negates the purpose of popping and eating a jar

Home canner get the Temps right up to where botulism spores are killed but not as hot as commercial processes, so sometimes a spore or two makes it through, which is why the recommendation is to boil low acid foods from home canned sources before eating them.

I'd do the cook then dehydrate approach for ease of use for sure.

If you want to research further, reach out to the food lab at UT/knoxville.

Lauren Knickman wrote:
Anyone know how long it would take for botulism to grow?

At the rate bacteria grow and reproduce, I'd guess about two hours.

I know for a firsthand fact five hours is plenty to develop food poisoning. This is why I don't eat soup or gravy in a restaurant unless it's kept boiling hot. Because steam-table hot for half a day is long enough for bad bacteria to reproduce to a level that will make you sick. (I worked there, so knew exactly the conditions.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism

Botulism is not the only risk, just the one with a catchy name.