Canning 101: Green Beans

 We eat a lot of green beans at our house and we have been eating loads of fresh ones for several weeks now, I have been picking them every other day. I thought I had better can a few pickings. In addition to our large pressure canner,  I have a small pressure cooker that only fits three pints. I actually really like it, because that is about what I can harvest in one picking from our garden.

Canning green beans is actually very simple and it only took me a few minutes to prepare these 3 pints for processing. Here is the method I use:

1. Clean and Sterilize your jars.
2. Wash and trim your beans, removing strings. I snap larger ones in half.
3. Fill your jars with cleaned beans. Add salt if you like ( 1 tsp. per quart, 1/2 tsp. per pint). Cover beans with boiling water, leaving 1 inch of head space.
4. Wipe jar rims and put on your lids.
5. Process in pressure canner.
Processing time is 20 minutes for pints and 25 minutes for quarts. If you are using a weighted gauge pressure canner use 10 lbs. pressure for altitudes 0-1,000 ft. and 15 lbs. pressure for altitudes over 1,000 ft.  If you are using a dial gauge canner please refer to this table for pressure weights. Be sure to follow the instructions for your pressure canner. 

It is that simple and you now have your own home canned garden beans.