Probably but the way it is written the pH is all going to depend on how much juice you get from the apples. I have some concern that is a lot of low-acid peppers for what is an unknown amount of vinegar. The approved recipes for pepper jellies call for at least 1/2-3/4 cup of vinegar and less peppers.

So if I were making it I'd be sure there was at least 1/2 cup of vinegar (even if it means I'd have to add more sugar) and I'd reduce the peppers to 1 cup max. JMO

Dave

Hi Dave, thank you for your quick and thoughtful response. Am hoping to make a dent in our crabapple and apple crops over the next couple of days so appreciate it.

I found this recipe initially on this forum but there were no followup comments re safety or anything else. This recipe can also be found on another site and one commenter there had the same reservations we both had. She uses 1 measured cup vinegar to 2 measured cups of the crabapple juice. I could certainly reduce the amount of peppers to 1/3 hot and 2/3 sweet as well. Those two changes would fall within your suggestions so will give it a try and let you know.

I notice the All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving which came out this year has a similar recipe which calls for more apples, less peppers and no vinegar.

1 qt. water

3 pounds apples

4 c. sugar

1/2 c. jalapenos

1 T. lemon juice

I have enough apples and peppers to try both recipes so will do a test run. thanks

I have crab apples all around my house, I have never tried them before... about what size should they be before you pick them? those recipes above sound good.

Since I am fairly new to canning I didn't realize how many problems there were with the top recipe until I actually got into it. In addition to the safety concern addressed by digdirt2 above re the pepper/vinegar ratio, the amount of crabapples and water listed did not give me anywhere near the 2 cups of juice another canner recommended. Had to do another full batch of crabapples to get 2 cups total which seems like a waste of fruit.

Other canners said it took 20-25 minutes to get a set instead of the 8-10. Mine was candy in 12. The 5 minute processing time seemed short compared to other similar recipes too. All in all I lost all confidence in this recipe and ended up putting the jars in the fridge to eat soon. The flavor was good but the wine vinegar (1 cup) was pronounced.

Fared better with the Spicy Apple-Jalapeno Jelly recipe in The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving (2016). Used crabapples instead of McIntosh and had to do another half-batch of apples to come up with 4 cups juice. Guess our crabapples aren't very juicy. Used three different types of crabapples and they seemed ripe to me as I sampled each kind as are the deer. Lots of ripe fruit on the ground too. Perhaps the lack of water took its toll.

Was hoping to find a good, reliable recipe to use up some of our crabapples but will try pie filling instead and switch to Confetti Jelly as our primary hot pepper jelly.

Kerry, have no idea how to tell if they are ready to be picked or not. I rely on whether the deer like them, whether they taste good to me and whether the ripe ones are littering the ground anyway. The fruit on our trees vary in size so couldn't tell you what size to pick. Have no idea what types we have except one tree is red-skinned, one is green and one is striped. All have white flesh. sam