Wash green beans in preparation for canning.

The type of green bean that you use will affect the finished product. I have canned several varieties that tasted fine fresh, but were icky after they were canned.

 

 

Currently, my preferences are Kentucky Wonder, Lazy Housewife and Cupidon. But you may have others that work well for you 🙂 I don’t like Purple Queens or Blue Lake. But you might like the flavor. It’s all up to your taste buds 🙂

Cut or snap beans to desired length.

This is entirely YOUR choice. I like my beans long, like around 6 inches long. My grandma likes her beans about 2 inches long. The important thing is that you are putting away food for winter 🙂

Keep cut beans in cold water until you put them in the jars.

But don’t wait too long – overnight in a cool area is okay usually. But any longer than that, or in a warm area, and the beans start to ferment. You will see frothy stuff in the water.

The best thing is to cut/snap them and then can them right away. But life happens sometimes.

Because beans are a low acid food, they are supposed to be canned in a pressure cooker/canner. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your pressure cooker/canner. Mine is a Presto 23 quart, and they recommend putting 3 quarts of boiling water in along with 2 Tbsp of white vinegar. Set canner on burner on med-low heat.

 

Get lids into hot, almost boiling water. I debated about using Tattler lids, but this canner was going to be coming off the stove about 11 pm. You’re supposed to wait until the pressure drops to zero before taking off the lid. Depending on ambient air temperature, this can take 30 minutes to 1 1/2 hours. I didn’t want to wait up to find out. With Tattler lids, you’re supposed to tighten the rings as soon as you remove them from the canner. I just wanted to take the canner off the burner and go to bed, allowing it to cool overnight.  Excuses, excuses, I know 🙂

 

Get jars into hot water.

I have found that my pressure cooker can hold 16 wide mouth pints, or 20 regular mouth pints or 7 quarts.

Get some water boiling.

This is my rabbit tea kettle 🙂

I like bunnies, too 🙂

 

Pack jars how you like. I like the long green beans because I feel like I can fit more into a jar, thus using less jars.

My grandma prefers shorter length green beans because she can fill the jars more quickly.

Whatever works for you 🙂

 

For pints add 1/2 tsp canning salt, for quarts add 1 tsp canning salt.

Add boiling water to within 1/4″ of top.

Run a plastic knife down the side in 4 or 5 places to remove air bubbles. With the long green beans, I don’t have as many air bubbles as with the shorter beans.

 

Wipe edge of jar with clean damp cloth or napkin.

Put on lid and tighten with a ring.

Place jar into canner.

In a pressure canner, you can put in two layers. Make sure to offset jars so they don’t sit directly on top of the jar below it.

Place canner lid on top of canner, matching up arrows. Then twist to secure lid and turn heat up to med-high.

Allow steam to vent for about 10 minutes. This little dealywhopper will pop up about that time.

I think it’s also called the Air Vent.

 

Then cap the vent pipe with the weight regulator.

 

Once the pressure climbs to 11 lbs, turn burner heat down to maintain that pressure.

Pints should be processed for 20 minutes, quarts for 25 minutes.

Burner heat may need to be adjusted to maintain 11 lbs pressure. Higher elevations should be processed at higher pressures.

2,000 – 4,000 feet should be processed at 12 lbs.

After processing, remove canner from burner and allow pressure to drop to zero before opening the canner lid.

Remove weight regulator before removing lid.

It will be extremely hot with lots of steam, so be very careful when opening the lid.

UPDATE:

The bean plants produced enough for another cannerful of green beans.

This time there were quite a few that were really curly, so I decided to put them through a frencher.

 

There are fine metal discs which slice the beans lengthwise.

Put the beans in the top part and turn the handle.

 

The beans come out the bottom in thin slices.

 

I got enough for a few jars.

It is time consuming to french the beans. But I like them when I make green bean casserole during the holidays.

 

There are a few more air bubbles when canning the french green beans than when canning them lengthwise, so make certain to run your plastic knife down the sides of the jar after putting in the hot water and before you put the lids on.

And since this canner would be coming off the burner in the afternoon, I opted to use Tattler reusable lids.

After the pressure dropped back to zero, which took about an hour, I removed the weight and took off the lid. It was still very hot in the canner. I tightened the rings and allowed the jars to cool completely before checking the seals.

I only had one lid that didn’t seal and it was because the rubber gasket had slipped and wasn’t seated properly on the edge of the jar. They tasted pretty good for dinner 🙂

 

Thought for the day: Well Behaved Women Seldom Get Written Down in History 🙂