FlipTx, I know what you mean about the skins sloughing off; I had a lot of varieties do that, especially some of the Romano types. "Goldmarie" was the worst, but "Garafal Oro" fared better. A lot of beans are wonderful fresh, but freeze poorly.

For freezing, the round-podded varieties seem to be the best. "Fortex" has done well for me, and is now my favorite variety for freezing. "Emerite" is even better in terms of quality - probably the best - but is less disease-resistant in wet summers. "Rattlesnake" did well in freezing trials, and has an excellent flavor. "Pole 191" & "Kentucky Wonder" are also good, but try as I might, the skin always sloughs off a little when heating them... wonderful "beany" flavor, though.

I've learned that how you reheat them is just as important as how you freeze them. No more boiling water for me. I heat them slowly in the microwave (just covered by water) until they are al dente, then drain them immediately. They still "squeak" like fresh. You might be able to get the same results dunking them in boiling water for only a few minutes, under close scrutiny.

Haven't tried as many new snaps lately, I have been preoccupied with my search for good shellies.

Yeah, I don't boil them when reheating. I put them in simmering water for a couple of minutes, just till they're not icy anymore. I'm glad to hear Rattlesnake did well for you. I plan on growing that one for the first time this coming spring.

The bean skins remind me of this PBS thing on whales I saw once. A marine biologist was testing the DNA of pods of whales, and did so by collecting thin sheets of their sloughed-off skin from the surface of the water.

My mother's "boiled to death" green beans never tasted quite right - all the flavor and vitamins had long dissipated into open steam while the water with the flavor and vitamins was dumped down the sink! And, the skin sloughed off no matter what variety was grown. It IS all in how you prepare them.

I love Contender green snap beans. Very prolific and tasty, but there are other snaps just as good.

After picking early in the morning, I do not wash them until they are ready to be processed, keeping them in the fridge with a paper towel loosely around them in a slightly opened plastic bag.

To prepare for freezing, it is best to find a colander or metal basket that fits into your largest soup pot for the easiest and quickest way to get the beans in and out of the water. If you don't have one you'll need a strainer to do the multiple drainings. I snap off only the ends, rinse quickly under running warm water, put them into the colander and submerge in boiling water to blanch for 3 minutes (begin counting when you put them in), drain quickly, then submerge them in a bowl of ice water for 1-3 minutes to stop the cooking action. Drain then let air dry for a while on cookie cooling racks. Lay them out on wax paper on a cookie sheet and put into the freezer for an hour or so until well frozen (sometimes I don't get to them for a few days and they are fine). Then they go into large freezer zip bags for up to 6 months so I can take out just the amount I need since they are not a clump - each is separate. I also use vacuum sealer bags to make up "veggies for two" that keep until next year's harvest begins.

To cook green beans, I use a Black&Decker or Oster electric food steamer. They are under $30 at Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, etc. Easy 12-15 minutes from frozen state to crisp fresh, 10-12 minutes from fresh harvest to the dinner table. It is the only appliance I have on my counter, other than the coffee pot, since it gets the most use, like every day! I think it is cheaper to use than the microwave and keeps all the vitamins and flavor inside the vegetables.

Nancy the nancedar

I am glad to find this discussion about freezing green beans because I was just about to give up as mine always turn out mushy. But I will try again with emerite vert which I have grown for the first time this year, and will watch the blanching time and dry the beans before freezing. Wish luck!

I have been making green bean pickles instead. Folks love 'em, the sweet ones more so than the dilled. I use a variety of beans cut into pieces, including Kentucky Wonder Wax- they look festive, like a bean salad.

A tip: a Presto Kitchen Kettle is great for blanching as it comes with a handled wire basket that makes it easy to drain the beans and dump them into ice water. It is intended for deep frying but works well for blanching. I got mine for $20 at Walmart- what a deal- but now they are more like $30 at Walmart or Amazon.com. There's a stainless version, too, for more $$. Mine is teflon lined and has a tight fitting lid- it can also be used as a soup stock pot. I also use it for heating milk to make yogurt. It has a temperature controller that helps to just scald the milk. It doesn't control low enough to incubate the yogurt though. Otherwise, I love my Presto kettle!

Here is a link that might be useful: Presto Kitchen Kettle Multi Cooker

I'm finding the same as zeedman in that the rounder-podded varieties seem to be freezing best. In addition, I've found that the more mature beans freeze a lot better, too. I like them very young for fresh eating, but the young ones don't handle freezing as well, in my opinion.

I'm also finding that having two bowls (or in my case, a very clean double sink) of cold water is cooling them off MUCH faster than letting them sit in one bowl/sink. Ever since I started doing the double dip thing, I've not had any sloughing of the skins; the faster you can cool them the better. I've got a stainless steel collender that sits in my big soup pot so I can just lift them out quickly and plunge them into the first cold sink. I swish them around a bit, then promptly scoop them out into the second sink of cold water. I change the water in the first sink every second batch (it warms up fast), but the water in the second sink is still ice cold after six or seven batches are dumped in there.

Since I freeze them in those vacuum-sealed bags in meal-sized portions for our little family (two adults and two young kids), all I do to cook them now is stab a few holes in the top of the bag and use the microwave on the frozen vegetable setting. After the beeper goes off, I find if I leave them to sit in the microwave for a few minutes more (not on, just resting there), the texture is a lot more like they are cooked from fresh.

The "squeak" is still there for the first few months of storage. I've never been able to freeze them for a whole year and not have the quality change at least a little. They still far surpass store beans, but they're defninitely not the same as they were earlier on.

Top Crop is an old standard variety that is very prolific on the bush and freezes very well without the skin separation. Good bean flavor.

I know this is a seriously old thread.. but I vote for Top Crop. I've dehydrated, pickled, and frozen it, and it stands up well and tasty to all of it.

My worst frozen so far was Gold Marie. Pretty good as a fresh bean, it was just ... tough and almost chewy in a cardboard way once it was frozen- I had to toss a few quarts of it. Not simple simmer, saute, or slow cooker in a stew could save it once frozen.

Unfortunately, I had a serious jackass of critter action that chewed out most of my spring plantings of beans, so I decided to try Early Contender late in the season- it didn't produce very well, but I did manage to freeze up a few quarts, and it was pretty decent- about par with supermarket quality frozen green beans.

This year I'm forsaking my beloved Top Crop (and that's hard to do) in favor of trying out a lot of beans I have gotten in trade. Several kinds of greens and yellows. Pencil pod wax, triumphe de farcy, cherokee wax, harvester, rodcor, golden wax, lynx, and masai are on the planting list to try out this year.

Beesneeds, you might want to consider Nickel fillet bean for whole pickling. It is a very prolific slender 4" bean that I also found to freeze well. Great for stir fry.

"My worst frozen so far was Gold Marie."

I second that observation, Goldmarie was one of my most spectacular frozen failures. Wonderful fresh (I still recommend it for an early pole wax) but horrible frozen.

Another good bush bean for canning would be Woods Mountain Crazy Bean, an heirloom introduced by poster Mawma several years ago on this forum. Quite a few members here (self included) have seed for it.

I was given a bean by a friend with the backstory that it was specifically selected as a good freezing bean. Sandhill Preservation is carrying it this year as "Sicitalian Black Swamp" bean. The beans are interesting because they are nearly round. I've seen nearly round beans before, but they are Nuna beans from the Andes. This may not mean much to most readers, but if you are familiar with the 5 groups of Phaseolus Vulgaris, you will recognize that very few Andean beans are grown in temperate climates. I don't know if this bean has an Andean heritage, but it is interesting to speculate about.

Adding more to this old thread! We grow and freeze enough beans for our entire year and have been experimenting with different varieties. We prefer bush beans to pole beans as I can manage to keep the Japanese Beetles off them. Great for freezing are Burpee French and Maxibel. I want to try Nickel this year and read a few posts up that it freezes well. When we did pole beans, Fortex did not freeze well and Emerite did, but I just couldn't fight the Japanese beetles any more and we aren't growing them again. We did use row covers and treated all our soil with Milky Spore but Fortex seems to attract them like crazy. Any more advice on Nickel?

You are correct that Fortex is a magnet for Japanese beetles. I have grown several varieties that do not attract them nearly as much including the Sicitalian Black Swamp beans mentioned above. Emerite is less attractive than Fortex.

I made a cross between Fortex and a small black highly disease and pest tolerant bean from Columbia (PI 207373) in 2014 that I hope will allow me to select a bean similar to Fortex but with better heat and disease tolerance. I will be selecting against any beans that are highly attractive to Japanese Beetles. I grew the F1 this year and have about 500 seed saved. Give me another year to grow the F2's and do some selection.