Drunken Baked Beans

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jwynia

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2010
Messages
123
Reaction score
27
Location
Minneapolis
This is one of those recipes that changes every time I make it, but I've been making versions for several years. Different beer/cider changes the flavors in interesting way and on days like today, I get Vidalia onions, which I really like to use when they're available. If I have leftover pulled pork, I add a bunch of that as well.

This is for a large, oval crock pot. The older style circle crock pot should probably be half of this.
1/4 pound of bacon or salt pork
1 lb pork sausage
1 lb of diced onions
3T of diced garlic
1.5 lbs of dried great northern beans
1 29 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
2 cups of brown sugar
3 bottles of beer or hard cider
4 oz of whiskey

Soak the beans for 24-48 hours.
Dice and brown the bacon or salt pork and add it to the crock.
Brown the pork sausage and add it to the crock.
In the pork fat, sauté the onions and garlic and add them to the crock.
Add all but the beer and whiskey and beans to the crock.
Add the whiskey.
Add the beans.
Fill the crock with beer.
Put it on low for 24 hours. I usually try to get a 4 hour window on high, somewhere in the first 12 hours. The character really changes in the last 8 hours.
Make sure that the beans stay covered in liquid or you’ll get a layer of crunchy beans on top.
Depending on the beer or cider used, you may need more sugar or a bit of maple syrup to balance the acidity.
2014-06-27%2009.04.52.jpg

2014-06-28%2009.14.33.jpg


This batch this past weekend used my dark candi sugar cider and Maker's Mark (wife needs to avoid gluten for a while to see if she's allergic to it). There's a temptation to use dark beer for this, but the way things cook down, that doesn't work well.
 
Looks soooo tasty! 1 question though, when you say "soak the beans," are you soaking them in water or beer/cider?
Regards, GF.
 
It's pretty rich, especially with the pulled pork. But, I think that makes it a great side dish alongside cornbread, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, etc. You wouldn't eat a giant bowl of these (well, I have, but that's not the point), but a big scoop alongside a plate of other stuff, they're really nice.
 
mmmmmmmm, pork on pork! I'm giving it a go now for a bbq tomorrow. I'm going to have to use canned beans and I will have about 18-20 hrs, not 24. Should I cut back on the beer a tad? Do you use a whole lb of onions or did you mean to write 1 onion? Thanks for sharing :mug:
 
I mean a pound of onion. The liquid ratio should be similar, since soaked beans aren't that far away from canned. I've never made them with canned. I'd be concerned about them getting mushy, so a shorter cooking time might address that.
 
I mean a pound of onion. The liquid ratio should be similar, since soaked beans aren't that far away from canned. I've never made them with canned. I'd be concerned about them getting mushy, so a shorter cooking time might address that.

Alright, a lb of onions it is. for the brew I went with hard cider. It's in the crock pot now. :ban:
 
It's a lot of onions, but they basically cook down like a French onion soup in the crock pot.
 
This looks pretty good. Does the sweetness of all that brown sugar come through though?
Just recently had some BBQ that was dominated by the taste of brown sugar. Yecch!
 
If anything, these lean a little short on the sugar in the final flavor. People regularly say they don't like normal (read Bush's) baked beans because of all of the sweetness, but these they like.

But, like the original post says, depending on the beer/cider you use, you may want to sweeten them up at the end. This batch was left as is and I didn't see any still on plates as they went into the garbage.
 
Thanks for the recipe, jwynia! What kind of beer do YOU usually use when you make this recipe?
 
Most common beer I use is a New Glarus Spotted Cow clone, which is a cream ale, I suppose. It's pretty much my "house" beer.

I do use cider quite often.
 
The beans were a hit! I used 2 lbs of canned beans to try to make up for fact that they already absorbed liquid. But, it wasn't very beany. If I had to use canned beans again, I would use at least 3 lbs. I also added a little Chipotle powder to give it some bite. Thanks again for sharing.
 
Dried beans aren't that hard to work with. Rinse then soak overnight. Then put it together to cook in the morning.
 
Dried beans aren't that hard to work with. Rinse then soak overnight. Then put it together to cook in the morning.

I will probably use dried beans next time. I did this batch in a pinch and didn't have time to soak beans overnight. I should have done a quick google to see how canned beans translates to dried and I would have realized I was way short. I used 2 cans but I probably should have used 4 :drunk:
 
That's like this recipe I came up with a week ago & just made today. Italian gravy beans. The recipe is in "what did I cook this weekend". I had 2 cans of light red kidneys, could've used 3. But here's a pic;

Flavor is spot on Italian to me. With light red kidney beans, Stewed tomatoes, Sweet onion, celery, Italian herbs, garlic & Irish red ale, EV Mediterranean olive oil etc. It's thick & damn tasty.
 
Back
Top