Hi guys, I live in Spain. The jars of beans I can buy here are a different size to the jars in the UK. The ones I can get are 570 g, drained weight 400 g. The gloop is usually quite thick and there’s not much of it. The recipes in the books talk about 400 g jars of beans, drained. Can you tell me what the drained weight of 400 g jars of beans in the UK is? It seems like an odd question, but I guess even how thick the liquid is or how much there is of it could make a difference and I could end up with sloppy bean burgers or ones that are too crumbly and won’t hold together.

Thanks for any advice.

Hi there Snoop, it is a difficult calculation, even when making something which asks for 200 grams from a 400 gram tin, once you pour away the juice or water it does not weight 400 so do you still use 200 or half. I have just made the Spanish (very appropriate for you) chickpea and chorizo soup and it asks for half a tin so I poured the juice away and measured what was left. There was 270 grams of chickpeas so I put 135 in my soup. You need to do a bit of emptying and weighing. Thats the best I can offer on this.

As Sunshine Girl says – nothing definitive
Varies with how much water a producer thinks they can get away with!

On the waitrose website, they helpfully give nutrition for the drained weight, which may be useful.
http://www.waitrose.com/shop/DisplayProductFlyout?productId=9481
With this brand, you get 240g drained beans from a 400g can

Sainsbury’s own brand is similar, but a branded product that they sell appears to yield only 200g from a 400g can.
Tesco also 240g per 400g own brand can – but harder to work out from the information given on a branded product
Presumably, once drained and rinsed, the nutrition won’t vary too much from one brand to another

I rinse canned beans – I’m familiar with the jars you mention, and the gloop rather than brine – not sure what’s in that, but I would probably rinse the beans.

Thanks for the info, guys. At least I’ve got a ballpark figure to go on: anywhere between 200 and 270 g. That’s quite a variation, so maybe I’ll try a midway point and see how I do. Very useful info, as I often cook chickpeas from scratch, so it gives me an idea for those too.

And yes, Frog, I rinse beans as that stuff just looks weird. That said, the dogs love it.

Hope you enjoyed the soup, sunshine-girl. I make a ‘local’ version with a lot more spinach and a lot less chorizo. Still good, though.