Pickled Spicy Beans – v2 & v3 – September 2010

When I saw the Labor Day ad from my local grocery store, it had a sale item that I had to pick-up. And what food item got me so interested, that I had to get it? Why none other then Michigan grown green beans for $0.58 lb. Yes, you read that right $0.58 a pound. And having finally cracked open a jar of the wax beans, and enjoyed the results. I thought that I would give it another try, but with green beans, and also with a couple of recipe modifications. Here are the results:

Version 2.0 & 3.0

  • 3 lbs 6.9 oz fresh green, un-trimmed weight, divided between four quart jars

Brine:
(I used the same brine for v2 & v3, and this is enough brine for four quart jars)

  • 5 cups white vinegar
  • 7 cups water
  • 3/4 cup pickling/canning salt

Per pint jar for v2:

  • 3 whole clove of garlic
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Per pint jar for v3:

  • 4 whole clove of garlic
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Process for 10 minutes in a water canner.
Yield: 4 quarts

Side notes:
1)
I added the loose spices after running the jar with the food saver. I learned my lesson with the pickles from v2 & v3.
2) I changed around the water/vinegar ratio from 50%/50% to ~60%/40%, to see how it will effect the final product. I’ll let you know the results.
3) Since I was using quart jars instead of pint jars, I had to look in the Blue Book for some guidance on processing times. And interesting enough, it listed the same processing time for pints and quarts, of 10 mins. Check out the update from the beans in v1, regarding the 5 minute processing time.
4) For some reason, version 3 with the cayenne pepper looks like it is going to be crazy hot. The funny part, is that I was originally thinking about only using 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper per quart jar. But when I looked at the Blue Book recipe for “dilly beans”, it listed 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper per quart jar. So I threw caution to the wind and went with 1/2 tsp per jar. It’s only for two jars, so I really don’t have much to lose in testing it out. But this kind of makes me wonder if I should try adding some cayenne pepper to the vinegar-based pickles. I guess something to think about for next time.
5) I had about a pint of brine left over that I didn’t want to pour down the drain. So I filled a pint jar full of garlic (with any bad spots removed), and topped it off with the brine. This idea was inspired by a recipe from the The Joy of Pickling for “Chinese Pickled Garlic”, except that recipe had a brine mixture of: 1/2 cup vinegar (rice, white wine or distilled white), 1/2 tsp sugar & 1/2 tsp pickling salt. So mine is close except no sugar and I added water. I’ll let you know how this turns out.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>