I started this year's canning season yesterday by canning a batch of beans. I had previously picked the beans twice, and had more than enough to process a canner full of pint jars. Because there's just 2 of us to make meals for, I use pint jars instead of quart jars for the beans.
The first thing that I had to do was wash a bunch of empty jars. Even if they're already clean, it's a good idea to wash them before you use them. Since I was going to wash jars anyway, I washed 2 dozen of them. I can only fit 8 jars in the pressure canner at one time, but I also had enough ripe tomatoes to can a batch of them, so more jars would be needed than just the 8 for the beans.
The next step is to prepare to fill the jars with the beans. The Tupperware refrigerator containers keep the beans fresh until I get enough to can a full batch.
I use the Ball Blue Book of Preserving as my reference guide for my canning efforts. It contains the methods and recepes for canning or freezing just about any food you would want to preserve.
For canning beans, there are 2 methods given in the book, the raw pack method and the hot pack method. I use the raw pack method because it's easier for me and doesn't involve as much work. With the raw pack method, you put the raw beans into the jars, add your little bit of salt if you wish, it's optional, and then pour boiling water into the jars to fill them to about 1/2 to 3/4s of an inch below the rim. If you wish to use salt, use un-iodized canning salt. Use 1/2 teaspoon per pint, or 1 teaspoon per quart.
Once you pour the water into the jars, you use a tool such as the handle of a spoon to get the air bubbles out of the jar by pushing it down between the beans and the glass to force the air out of the jar. When you've done that, then you top off the water to that same 1/2 to 3/4s of an inch below the jar rim.
The next thing that I do is to heat the jars up in a big pot with enough hot water in the pot to come about half wway up the sides of the full jars. This keeps the jars hot until the pressure canner is ready for them. Because I do a lot of my canning out in the greenhouse, that is where I do the jar heating, on my camper stove.
While I'm heating the jars, I'm also heating the water in the pressure canner to boiling on my cast iron burner. The canner lid is just resting on top of the canner, it helps to steam up the rubber gasket for the lid so it will seal properly when you lock the lid on the canner to run the pressure up.
Once the water in the pressure canner has started to boil, I wipe the rims of all the jars and put the lids and bands on them. Wiping the rim before you put the lids on will make sure that there's nothing on the rim to interfere with the seal. I wipe all of the rims first, and then I put the lids on one by one, and put each jar into the canner as soon as I put the lid on it.
Use jar lifting tongs for moving the hot jars, burning your hand with boiling water or steam is really no fun.
Once all the jars are in the pressure canner, I lock the lid in place, and wait for the pressure to build up. For pints of beans, you need at least 10 pounds of pressure for at least 20 minutes. I tend to let the pressure drift up to around 12 pounds to be sure, and I usually keep the pressure up for about 25 minutes. If you live in a place that is above 1000 feet altitude, you need to adjust those numbers a bit. There's a chart in the book that shows you those adjustment numbers.
After the pressure canner has been at the required pressure for at least the required time, you simply turn off the burner and wait for the pressure to drop back down to zero. Don't try to hurry this cooling period, it could mess up the seals on the jars. Don't attempt to take the lid off the canner until the pressure is back down to zero. The book recommends that once the pressure has dropped to zero, you remove the lid, and let the jars stay in the canner for about 10 minutes while everything starts to cool off. After about 10 minutes, you remove the jars from the canner with the jar lifting tongs and put them on a towel to finish cooling off. Leave an inch or 2 between the jars so they will cool off more naturally. Don't mess with the lids until the jars have cooled off completely, you could disturb the seal while the jars are still hot.
Once the jars have cooled off and set overnight, I'll remove the bands and wipe the jars with a wet rag to clean the residue off them. Then I write the date that I processed them on the lid with a marker, and then I put them in my canning storage room. I'll have to make a new space for them so that I don't mix them with last year's jars. I use the oldest jars first, and I'm still working on using up the last of the 2017 harvest. It's good to have extra, just in case of hard times.
Well, that's all I have for this post, thanks for stopping by to check it out!
