food Fooling around with Serranos

Ok so Sethsquatch and I went the other weekend and helped FarmerGuy rip out his garden before his move.
I harvested among other things 3 pounds of Serranos. When there on other visits he gave me some of his Cowboy Candy, so I asked for the recipe and he emailed this to work with:
For candied peppers (serranos, jalapenos, etc.):

1/2 - 1 pound jalapeño peppers
2/3 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp salt (preferably non-iodized like kosher salt - affects color if it's iodized)
2 cups granulated sugar
Freshly grated zest and juice of a lime

Sprinkle all the salt on the cut up peppers. Take the vinegar, sugar and lime juice, put in a medium or large sauce pan. Slowly bring it up to boiling. Once boiling, turn up the heat and boil it for 5 minutes. Add the peppers to the boiling mixture and boil hard for 5 minutes until they start to darken. Remove with a slotted spoon and put into clean jars (sterilized if you are going to store them a long time). Continue to boil the syrup for another 5 minutes. If you like a firmer texture, take the syrup to 250-degrees (firm or hard ball stage) which will take about 10 minutes, it darkens slightly, but should not be as dark as caramel - a bit lighter than maple syrup. Pour over peppers in jars.

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So I first cut the tips and stems of and sliced them up. No pic my fail

Then they got piled on the tray and into the smoker with half Peach wood and half Apple wood I swear it happened
Next I started getting things together figuring the recipe for 1/2 pound so everything got sextupled.
First, I sprinkled on the salt(sea salt), all but 1 tablespoon since the first 5 already seemed to be enough.
I put 4 cups of Apple Cider Vinegar in the pot and went for the sugar. Only 7 cups left. They went in and then a cup of Brown Sugar and a prayer that all would work out.

Time to get it boiling
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Once it was ready the serranos went in
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I then worked through the mad vinegar boiling fumes and got them going nicely.

All said and done I had extra fluid left over and was worried I had just made sweet pickled Serranos.
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But the next day I opened one with the neighbor and they are damn good.
 
hang on a sec, I'm probably misreading something. 2 cups sugar and 2/3rd cup vinegar is not going to be enough liquid to even dissolve the sugar. That looks tremendously tasty. Let me know about how much liquid to start with, I'd like to try to make this for Thanksgiving gifts.
 
hang on a sec, I'm probably misreading something. 2 cups sugar and 2/3rd cup vinegar is not going to be enough liquid to even dissolve the sugar. That looks tremendously tasty. Let me know about how much liquid to start with, I'd like to try to make this for Thanksgiving gifts.

You read it right. It is a nice thick syrup. Keep in mind I took the original recipe by 6 and used 4 cups vinegar. Needed 12 cups sugar, but only had 7 then added 1 of brown sugar. Next time I will be following it exactly for the thicker syrup. Mine turned out nicely though and everyone that has tried it has loved it.
 
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