Home Canning Green Beans (Lots of Photos)

There are lots of photos here. Just skim by them if you don't want to look.



It is still winter here, but it is spring somewhere and Krogers has nice green beans for sale at a good price now



we decided to can some.



We have two pressure cookers



That each hold 4 pint jars



If we do not have enough jars to fill the cooker, we use an empty jar filled with water to keep then jars from bumping around during the canning process.



We like to can our beans as whole beans, standing them straight (vertical) in the jar. I am certain they taste the same as snapped or whole, but IMO are a lot prettier on the shelf of the pantry. When they are small pint size beans they more tender and are easier to work with since there is little trim waste to deal with and smaller beans are more tender. Because of this, we try not to buy (or in the old days, grow) long/big/tough beans. When we grew them, we grew Contender-pole beans. Now we just buy what looks good and hope the taste is as good as our memory of the old days when we grew what we canned.



We do keep the bits and pieces we trim away to get the beans to length (more on that later) and any broken beans, canning these in separate jars from the whole beans.



So far we have canned two snapped bean jars and have eaten one of them. Pretty good vegetable stuff.





Here is how we can our beans:

As far as I know, there are two ways to home can vegetables - cold pack and hot pack. We cold pack our beans - put them into the jars with the beans cold - not hot. To us, working with cold product during jar packing just seems easier.



Start by washing the jars. They need to be squeaky clean and sanitized (to maintain proper food safety). Before washing, carefully inspect the jar sealing areas and discard any chipped edge jars. Our washer has a three hour washing/sanitizing cycle and since we are retired with lots of free time, that is what we use. Works fine.



"Snip and snoot" away the stem and bloom ends of the beans. This cleans them up and (easily) allows the water to move into the bean during canning and cooking.



Wash the beans and allow them to drain until somewhat dry. It is easier to work with beans that aren't drippy wet.

You will use salt in the canning process. It should be either Canning/Pickling Salt, which has no iodine and no flow controlling additives, or "Circle P - Parve - Kosher Salt, which if my friend Rabbi Norman Schloss, who is the regional inspector for "Circle OU" the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, in Atlanta, is doing his job right will be fine for this recipe. Circle OU



Once the beans have been prepped and the jars cleaned and sanitized, we are ready to fill the jars.



The beans are trimmed to size if needed, any very small pieces are set aside and then the beans are placed in the jars. If it is our work, they are placed standing up, with 1/2 inch head space.





Leaving proper head space in the jar is important, since an underfilled jar may have bean tips (or whole bean pieces if they are snapped) at the top that are not covered with water when canned, and jars that are overfilled may expand to the point where the jar blows up in the cooker.





Jars are tightly packed because the beans will shrink slightly during the canning process and you don't want wasted space.



Each jar gets 1/2 teaspoon of Kosher or pickling salt.





And then is filled to 1/2 inch from the top with boiling water.



The dome lids are heated in boiling water for a few minutes to soften the seal and assure proper sealing. Some will say this is not necessary and those folks should skip this step.



The dome lids are placed on the carefully cleaned jar rims.



and the rings snuggly screwed in pace by hand and into the pressure cooker they go. Fill the cooker 2/3 full of water to assure it does not boil dry, or shoot boiling water out the top when it comes to a boil and begins making steam.





The lid goes on the cooker and the heat is turned on to bring the cooker to a full boil I like to leave the "shaker" off of the cooker until I see steam coming out the hole, so that I know it is not blocked.



When steam starts coming out the port on top of the cooker, put the "shaker" fitting on the top and wait for it to start "jiggling"



Then pressure cook the jars for 15 minutes.



After 15 minutes, you want the cooker to cool slowly. Remove it from the heat and let the pressure drop to zero slowly.



If the pressure is rapidly dropped to zero, there is a real risk of exploding the jar(s) in the cooker.

As the lid is removed when the pressure reaches zero, you will probably see/hear the dome lids begin to "pop" down as a vacuum forms inside the jar and the lids seal. This is what you want to see and hear, since that indicates you did a good job placing and sealing the lid.





The hot jars are carefully placed on a pad or rack to continue cooling.











Now you can do this and claim you are an accomplished home canner, too.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my post. God bless you.