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[richenza]

Every year I make dilly beans. I generally only open the jar whne there are people around to share them, and when people are around I am almost always busy "hostessting". This means I ofter only get one or two out of each jar

Comments

[selkiechick]

Yay!

[richenza]

The Ball Blue Book recipe is a never-fail recipe. The only trick to it is that you should soak the beans in ice water for a good hour at least before canning, to insure crispness. A grape leaf added to each jar will help with this too, if you have grapevines or know someone who does.

[richenza]

To be perfectly honest, I use whatever salt comes to hand. This last batch was done with Iodized salt, as I was out of kosher salt. I just used a bit less as 1/4 cup of iodized salt is heavier than 1/4 cup of kosher salt (finer granulation lets it pack down more). The brine just needs to be salty enough to discourage bacteria. I think lots of "fussiness" in recipes is just there to make canning look hard.

The important canning tips are:
- put clean canning jars into jellypot full of water. Bring to a boil. Boil 1 minute to sterilize.
- to fill: remove 1 jar at a time from sterilizing bath. Fill with beans and hot brine... quickly. Don't let sterilized jars get cool before filling. If you want to do a large batch get a servant volunteer to help you