Ball canning pickled beets recipe: 59 photos
FAQ
Red beets can be preserved in a variety of ways. Beets can be pressure canned, frozen, or acidified with vinegar to pickle and then boiling water bath or atmospheric steam canned. There are even directions for beet relishes and for drying beets.
And thanks to the vinegar in pickled beets, you can use either a plain open water bath pot or a Pressure Canner (which will also let you can low acid vegetables!)
Plain beets must be pressure-canned to be safe. Another way of canning beets is to change the pH. When you add vinegar to beets to pickle them, you are changing the pH of the product. Pickled beets made using the recipe here (at the end of this column) will have a pH of 4.3 to 4.6.
The beets should be packed into hot jars with 1-inch headspace. Add canning or pickling salt (½ teaspoon for pints and 1 teaspoon for quarts) if desired. Process pints for 30 minutes and quarts for 35 minutes at 10 pounds pressure in a weighted gauge canner or 11 pounds pressure in a dial gauge canner.
Place the beets in a large kettle and fully submerge in water. Bring to a boil. Check each beet while cooking and remove it when done. Smaller beets can take 10 to 15 minutes to cook, while larger ones may take up to 25 minutes.