Hannan Popbeans (chickpeas) - anyone know how to get these to pop?

I decided it's time to taste the Hannan Popbeans.  It's a kind of chickpea that was developed by Carol Deppe and she talks about it in her book The Resilient Gardener.  

Apparently, we parch the beans and they pop open, becoming soft and tasty.

So I heated up a skillet like it says in the book and I toasted some dry beans.  They cracked open a little bit and taste amazing, but I couldn't get them to 'pop' as Carol describes.  Mine are still quite hard and I worry about breaking a tooth.  

What's the trick to cooking these popbeans?  

(I don't have a microwave)

I was going to plant these today, but if I can't get them to pop...

When I test moisture content of popcorn, I find that in my climate, popcorn seeds dry down to about 8.5% moisture. But when I do test popping, I find that they pop best at about 13.5% moisture. I deal with that by adding 5% water by weight to the seeds in a sealed jar. Shake. Then wait one day for the moisture to get evenly distributed through the seed before popping.

I tried popping my landrace garbanzo beans. Some of them popped up well, and were soft and easy to chew. Some remained hard. I haven't been selecting for the "popping" trait. However, it was easy to see which were soft and popped open, and which were still hard.

I just added 5% water to the same lot of garbanzo beans, (5 ml to 100g). I intend to test pop it again tomorrow. Yes, I know, it is super startling for a seedkeeper to be adding water to seeds, but we do strange things for our food.

I tried adding a few drops of water to some and waiting a few days  No improvement.

So I tried popping some like popcorn (oil and a lid).  They popped the same amount.  Just a little crack.  Not fluffy like the picture in the book.  Still very hard and toothbreakingly dangerous.

Any luck with yours?

When I popped mine the next day, they seemed harder than before I added the water.

This is the best I've managed so far.



In her book Deppe suggests that they need to be very dry to pop.  She also uses a microwave.  

I might take some to a friend's house and see if I can get better results with a microwave.

Any update on these? I'm putting some in the ground today and was curious about other people's experience.

Was also curious how they compared to "normal" garbanzos for hummus, soup, etc. Does their "poppiness" make them unsuitable for other uses?

I'm a bit late but just stumbled upon this thread.

From my understanding (read from other forums, don't remember the source sorry) the ones in the picture Raven posted are about as popped as they get. Very different from popcorn but just a different sort of food I suppose.


On a related note, I'd love to get my hands on some popbean seeds if anyone has any extras. I should have some interesting things to give in exchange come fall harvest

Clayton High wrote:

I'd love to get my hands on some popbean seeds if anyone has any extras.

I have been looking for seeds for a couple of years and these have been super hard to find. I have been on the resilientseeds.com mailing list, waiting for a notification that these would be available and today, January 1, 2022, they finally are! Presumably she does not have many because ordering is limited to a single 1-ounce seed packet — Enough for possibly one or two servings and enough seed to plant a real amount next year, hopefully. So if you want to order, I would do so immediately.

Now to see if I can get them to grow, and more importantly to see if I can get them to pop! I broke a tooth earlier this year over exactly nothing so I will not be risking my teeth on hard unpopped kernels. This adventure is mainly a giant favor to my husband who loves things like  corn nuts and has been gleefully parching cascade ruby gold corn.