Jalapeño jelly

[labradors]

Never having made jelly before, I was at a loss when I was the following question (quoted as is - spelling not fixed) on another site:

Quote:

---

I've attempted to make Jalapeno Jelly using receipts listed here but all have failed. Basically, every attempt turns to candy.

How can it be any different when you are starting with somewhat less that two cups of liquid and 5 CUPS of sugar.

I've had Jalapeno jelly before and it is just like any other home made jelly (except for the flavor). So what have I not read in the receipts presented here (All have some variation of 1 1/2 cups of cider vinegar and 5 [or more] cups of sugar).

---

With all the great jalapeños here, I have thought about making jelly, so that user's question has me wondering what he could be doing incorrectly. I do know that preserving takes a lot of sugar, so I have already compared what he was saying against recipes actually published by Certo, and even posted links to those recipes for him, but that doesn't really answer his question.

Do any of you experienced jelly makers out there have some idea what his problem could be? The only guess I could venture is that he is cooking it too long and/or on too high heat, thus caramelising the sugar instead of making jelly.

What do you think?

P.S.: I've already seen the recipes that you all posted a while back, and I will probably use one of those for my own efforts, but they still leave me pondering his problem.

[Lorraine]

I checked my Bernardin books, and here's a few thoughts:

Formation of crystals ( I'm thinking the candy stage would be close behind):
...Too much sugar
...Jelly mixture cooked too slowly or too long, resulting in too much evaporation of water.

When I've had problems with jelly etc, I have emailed them. They are very good at responding quickly.

[labradors]

Quote:

---

...Too much sugar
...Jelly mixture cooked too slowly or too long, resulting in too much evaporation of water.

---

The latter is what I had been thinking, since I may not have made jelly, but I DO make caramels.

Quote:

---

When I've had problems with jelly etc, I have emailed them. They are very good at responding quickly.

---

Found their site. Will check it out. Thanks.

[Lorraine]

" The latter is what I had been thinking "

Me too. When making jelly, I follow the recipe exactly. When they say boil hard for 2 minutes, my timer is on. But, things can still go wrong. Good luck with yours, Labs!

[iBcookin]

I'd throw my vote in with Lorraine. I have not made jalapeno jelly, but have tons of other types in my history and never had it set solid. Sounds to me like a "cooking too long" thing. When it says boil for one minute, I am watching my watch and it is pulled after the minute.

The amount of sugar doesn't sound all that off to me, most jellies take a ton of sugar to a couple cups of liquid.

[Lorraine]

I think the amount of sugar is correct. Mine calls for 5 C sugar, 2 C peppers, 1 C vinegar.

[cjs]

I agree - cooked too long. The only time I've ended up with rubber instead of jelly is when I've overcooked it OR one year I used plums that had so much natural pectin, I had to melt it down and add to another batch with no pectin....

[labradors]

Thanks for your input, everyone. I also called the toll-free number of the U.S. version of the site Lorraine mentioned earlier (since that one is really intended for Canada).

They agreed: too much sugar, too much pectin, or cooked too long. Since SO many of the questions the receive are usually about NOT having the jelly set up, we reached the (speculated) conclusion that the person who had asked the question probably noticed that the mixture was still liquid after the prescribed cooking time, and had probably decided to cook it longer, expecting it to gel in the pot. After a while, too much of the liquid had been cooked off, resulting in the "candy" mentioned.

Again, many thanks!