SHARON’S TIPS FOR PICKLED BEETS When to Remove the Stems & Taproot
Cut Beets to Size for the Jars
Before boiling, cut the stems of your beets to about 2–4”, and leave on the taproot. This will help maintain more color when you boil the beets to loosen the skins. When you’re peeling the cooked beets, cut off the tops and taproots too.
You want to slice or cut beets into about ¼” slices. You can slice them all into a pot and keep them warm to put in the jars. Or my preferred method is to have the brine ready, and then I work one jar at a time. I slice the beets right into a jar, add the brine, lids, and put that jar in the canner. Then fill the next jar.
Various Sizes of Beets
Spices
I often have a variety of sizes of beets. Try to sort your beets and cook those of similar sizes together. The larger ones will take a little longer to loosen the skins. If they are close, it is fine, but if you have one beet three times as big as another, I’d separate them for the cooking time. I’ll usually have two pots going...sometimes three. If you don’t have many beets, you can just fish out the smaller beets as they are done and leave the larger ones longer.
Adapted from Resource:
With this recipe, I adapted the basic, tested recipe from the NCHFP, but we liked different seasonings. I hope you like it too!
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_06/ pickled_beets.html Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving.
PICKLES & CONDIMENTS 147
