Peter’s Dilly Beans
Note: I prefer wide mouth pints and quarts. They are easier to stuff and fill with brine. I also prefer quarts, because if you have a lot of beans, they take a lot less work.
Use 4 to 4 ½ lbs. of fresh string beans – enough to stuff 8 pints or 4 quarts. (If you don’t use a scale, stuff all the jars before making the brine, and adjust the amount of brine that you make once you know how many jars you have to fill. Or just make extra brine, and toss out what you don’t use.)
In each pint put: (For a quart, double these amounts.)
- ¼ tspn crushed red pepper
- ¼ tspn whole white mustard seed
- ¼ tspn whole black mustard seed
- ½ tspn dill seed
- 2-3 sprigs of fresh dill or more if you like dill
- 1 large garlic clove (or two smaller ones)
- 1 slice or ring of green pepper
After everything else is in the jar, stuff the jars full of beans (as full as you can get them). Make sure no ends hang over the top edge of the jar. If they do, the jar won’t seal.
In a large pot, bring to boil:
(If you are doing a large quantity (48+ pints or 24+ quarts), as mentioned earlier, I over estimate the brine a little to make sure there is extra rather than too little.)
- 5 ½ cups of white vinegar
- 5 ½ cups of water
- ½ cup of salt
The above amounts of liquid / salt should give you a little extra. As soon as the brine boils, continue to boil it and ladle it into each jar until the liquid is approximately ½ inch from the top of the jar. Put a lid on the jar and screw down tight. As the jar cools, it will seal sometime within an hour or so and you’ll hear a click. Any jar that doesn’t seal, just put it in the fridge, it will be your test jar – an early present.
After they seal I like to turn them upside down for a day or so to get the spices to mix. Then store them right side up.
I usually wait at least a month until they are cured. Preferably longer.
Enjoy!
The BEST dilly beans ever!!!
This recipe is good…..Do you have a recipe for canned stewed tomatoes or tomato sauce?
We freeze our tomatoes, with basil. We boil our tomatoes down to a sauce thickness. We take a two handfuls (about 2 cups) of basil put it in the bottom of a quart container and pour the hot tomato sauce over the basil and freeze. It is great for soups and tomato sauce in the middle of winter.