Thanks to StartingFresh123 for posting this link. It says to increase the processing time (almost double!) for PCing larger/older beans that are almost shellies - the standard 20 (pints) or 25 (quarts) minutes is only for tender young beans.

http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes/canning-green-beans

Now NCHFP, BBB, and Ball Complete just say to use "tender" beans, they don't have that note. I wonder how young/thin (no bulges?) that is.

And if PC times increase I suppose BWB times for pickled beans do too. I haven't PCed beans (we prefer frozen) but did make a bunch of Dilly Beans with the larger beans last month. Haven't opened them but I'm wondering if they are safe (50:50 brine) if BWBed for 10 minutes (non sterilized jars)?

There are no descriptions of how large the beans are to be or to adjust processing time given for Dilly Beans on the Ball website

http://www.freshpreserving.com/Dilly Beans - WaterBath Canning

My Dilly Beans look about the size of the ones in the Ball photo for the PC'd beans - not exactly what I would call tender, those are a tiny bit larger than what we like to eat steamed (though we don't like haricot vert b/c they're too limp, I don't want any bulges on them but the dilly beans were just starting to show bumps).

This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Sep 7, 14 at 21:49