Canning: Dilly Beans!

Feed me pickled green beans (with a meal of bloody marys) and you'll be my best friend.

Using a recipe from Blue Ribbon Preserves: Secrets to Award-Winning Jams, Jellies, Marmalades and More on page 169, dilled green beans, I tried a new method of processing that calls for longer water-bath processing at a slightly lower temperature. The idea is that keeping the temperature between 180 and 185 fareinheit and processing for 30 minutes, rather than processing 10-15 min at a full boil, would preserve some of the crunch in the blanched green beans and give a better, firmer pickle.

 But, that wasn't the case for me-- the crunch is not there though the flavor is perfect. Next time I'd try a raw pack recipe from some other book to experiment with which processing style I prefer. Total: 2 quarts and 5 pints (plus one jar whose glass bottom cracked during processing, effectively dumping a pint of beans into the pot when I was lifting it out).